| Fast Facts |
location
south of Perth, stretching the width of southwestern Australia’s biodiversity hotspot
ecoregions
Southwest Australia Woodlands, Jarrah-Karri Forest and Woodlands, Southwest Australia Savanna, Esperance Mallee, Coolgardie Woodlands
project size
34 million acres
preserves
Chereninup Creek and Monjebup Creek Reserves (owned by Australian Bush Heritage Fund), Nowanup (owned by Greening Australia) and Yarrabee Wesfarmers Reserve (jointly owned by Greening Australia and Australian Bush Heritage Fund)
public lands
Walpole Wilderness, Stirling Range, Fitzgerald River, Frank Hann, and Peak Charles National Parks; Nature Reserves; state forests; and other unallocated public lands
partners
Australian Bush Heritage Fund, Fitzgerald Biosphere Group, Friends of the Fitzgerald River National Park, Greening Australia, The Wilderness Society, and Green Skills
natural events
magnificent wildflower blooms, July–November; whale watching, May–October; migratory birds, August–November | |
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Rapid expansion of agriculture has fragmented Western Australia’s eucalypt bushlands, habitat for the ground-nesting malleefowl and the greatest vascular plant diversity on Earth. |
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Stirling Ranges.
© Jeremy Woodhouse |
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You are likely to see more kangaroos and sheep than people as you traverse the rolling terrain of southwestern Australia. This landscape is an extant chunk of Gondwanaland—the primordial land mass that, before breaking apart, connected the Indian subcontinent and lands of the Southern Hemisphere. One of the oldest and most isolated land surfaces on the planet, this combination of semi-arid scrubland and wet forest has evolved over hundreds of millions of years with little catastrophic disturbance. As a result, pockets of species found nowhere else have evolved in close proximity across the landscape, creating a biodiversity “hotspot.”
In addition to kangaroos, other ubiquitous hopping marsupials and the occasional emu, the land harbors such unusual creatures as the hedgehog-esque echidna, the frilled lizard and the prairie chickenlike malleefowl, which constructs huge nesting mounds more than 3 feet high and three times as wide. But the 8,000 plant species—ranging from rare eucalypts and orchids to the primitively beautiful banksia—give this area its global biological significance. |
Royal hakea, Fitzgerald River National Park.
© Frans Lanting
/Minden Pictures |
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In the past century, this sparsely populated region has been transformed into a prairie of cereal grains and pasture—with devastating results for biodiversity and the land itself. Massive land conversion for farming and ranching has destroyed wildlife habitat and fragmented what remains, isolating plant and animal populations. Now an unforeseen phenomenon has begun stripping the landscape of its agricultural value as well. As the native ground cover of thirsty, deep-rooted eucalypts is replaced with seasonal wheat and other crops, the water table has risen, pushing ancient salt deposits to the surface and resulting in ghostly barren moonscapes. | |
Gondwana Link is a visionary effort by a number of grassroots Australian organizations and The Nature Conservancy to reconnect existing national parks and reserves with new private and public conservation lands, creating an unbroken band of protected bush across the state of Western Australia—from the Indian Ocean to the edge of the country’s Red Center. When fully established, the link will include three major national parks—Walpole Wilderness, Fitzgerald River and Stirling Ranges—and stretch more than 620 miles.
Learn more about The Nature Conservancy's work in Gondwana Link or other places we help protect in Australia. |
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| Conservation Profile |
targets
jarrah and marri forests, eucalypt woodlands, Mediterranean scrubland, tammar and black gloved wallabies, white tailed black cockatoos, freshwater dependant frogs
stresses
habitat fragmentation, climate change, invasive species, fire, spread of salinity
strategies
acquire land, secure conservation easements, restore ecosystems, promote ecologically sound public policies, encourage conservation management of public land
results
Gondwana Link coalition established; first 13,000 acres acquired; science program operating in major public land areas | | | | |
