• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

		Nature Conservancy Magazine: Autumn 2006 Nature Conservancy Magazine Sale of the Century Up Close Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom Hunter, Angler, Conservationist The Stamp of Conservation Nature Stories Podcast Nature Landmarks Nature Books Nature Travel Nature Preserves Subscribe Previous Issues

Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom

Page 2

Kangaroo paws © Marie Lochman/Lochman Transparencies Digital photo essay: The Flora of Gondwana Link (new window, Flash plug-in required) Photo © Marie Lochman/Lochman Transparencies Credits for photo essay: Rusty Dryandra © Jiri Lochman/Lochman Transparencies, Scarlet Banksia © Marie Lochman/Lochman Transparencies, Grass Tree © Andrew Davoll/Lochman Transparencies, Honey Possum © Marie Lochman/Lochman Transparencies, Red & Green Kangaroo Paw © Marie Lochman/Lochman Transparencies, Royal Hakea © Frans Lanting/Minden Pictures, Grass Trees © Jiri Lochman/Lochman Transparencies Learn More Learn more about Gondwana Link Learn more about the Conservancy's work in Australia

“To heal this land, as much as a third of this region will need to be revegetated, possibly much more,” says Bradby. “But the mix of plants changes, acre by acre, across hundreds of kilometers. To effectively reveg, you need to collect seeds from the plants on or next to each property.”

Thus the partners find themselves pioneering restoration on an acre-by-acre basis at places like Yarrabee, a 2,300-acre former sheep ranch where a duo of tractors tills the sandy soil and sows a mix of native seeds painstakingly collected from the immediate vicinity. This, the most recent acquisition of Greening Australia and the Australian Bush Heritage Fund—two of Gondwana Link’s lead partner organizations—is the largest single ecological planting ever undertaken in Australia. Once restored, the ranch will form a key part of the crucial habitat link between the region’s two largest protected areas, the Fitzgerald River and Stirling Range national parks—or the Fitz-Stirling, as the area is known locally.

Conservancy matching funds, created to encourage new strategic endeavors in Australia, helped to purchase Yarrabee. The same matching funds helped the Gondwana Link project get off the ground four years ago. Since then, more than 13,000 acres on seven properties have been purchased or placed under conservation easements in the Fitz-Stirling. Nearly half of the land targeted for conservation is currently on the open market, creating an unprecedented opportunity to buy and restore or restructure farms to make them ecologically and economically sound.

The Gondwana Link approach in this sparsely populated corner of the world involves, by necessity, a Conservancy-style push to invest in local partnerships and grass-roots experiments—knowing that collectively they can make large-scale restoration a reality. Town-dwelling elders of the aboriginal Noongar people, eager to reconnect their youngsters with the country while the stories and memories of earlier times still survive, have become part of the cultural and ecological restoration. Some local farmers are cultivating native plants, such as sandalwood, which can be sold for use in cosmetics and incense. Others are looking at planting native hardwoods that can yield sturdy support poles for the grapevines of the burgeoning Australian wine industry. And corporations have noted with interest that restored mallee is particularly effective at sequestering carbon—making it a potential tool to offset greenhouse-gas emissions elsewhere. 

If humans can adapt themselves to the dictates of the land, Gondwana Link may just succeed.
As the traditional farming population steadily declines, there is a growing desire by those remaining to create sustainable livelihoods and sustainable communities. “We are crazy enough to think we can achieve our ecological goals while strengthening the region’s social fabric,” says Bradby. “As we restore the landscape, we also want to help restore people’s relationship to and respect for the land and its needs. There is increasing awareness here of how rich and fragile this seemingly harsh geography really is. Ultimately, healing the land means healing ourselves.”
 

<< Previous   1  |  2