Healthy Bushland Project

Update

Results from the first round of community engagement have identified eight existing covenants adding 2000Ha into the National Reserve System.  A further six landholders are now negotiating new covenants which once finalised will add a further 434Ha.

One of these new covenants is on the property of Robert and Beth Boase who have discovered at least 10 rare and endangered plants on their Dowerin property.  The 250 hectares of Banksia woodland surrounding a natural saline seep or wetland is considered the only one of its kind left in the state. Rob and Beth Boase say they hope their discovery and the willingness to covenant would inspire other people with significant areas of natural bush to investigate the idea of a covenant.
 

Overview

Healthy Bushland is a strategic conservation project operating across the WA Wheatbelt that  works with landholders to permanently protect the region’s most significant patches of native vegetation through conservation covenants. Remnants in the Wheatbelt are recognised as a priority to the Australian Governments National Reserve System not only for the inherent biological richness but also because of the current on-going threats to the many endemic species & communities found in the region.

As part of this work two of our staff members, Anne Smith and Julia Murphy, recently presented the findings of a regional vegetation prioritisation process they undertook to the National Reserve System Section team of the Australian Government’s Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. The prioritisation process identified thirty seven of the one hundred and seventy eight vegetation associations within the Wheatbelt as being highest priority, as these types generally have less than 20% and/or 1000 hectares of their original extent remaining.

In addition to prioritising the thirty seven vegetation associations, the largest patches within each of these associations have been identified.  This has resulted in the identification of the top 1000 patches of remnant vegetation that could be considered the best representative examples of priority vegetation across the Wheatbelt. It is hoped that the vegetation prioritisation maps and data will provide Greening Australia (WA), Wheatbelt Natural Resource Management (NRM) and the community with clear conservation targets beyond the life of short-term funding initiatives - what you might call a Legacy Map.

Greening Australia (WA) is co-delivering the Healthy Bushland project with WWF-Australia on behalf of the Wheatbelt NRM with funding support from the Australian Government’s Caring for Our Country program.