Exploring the conservation efforts reconnecting vulnerable species | Discovery | Gardening Australia

Millie explores what is being done to protect and connect conservation areas. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe
Millie is in Central Victoria, along the Campaspe River, to meet Dr Sophie Bickford, a conservation ecologist who has been working with Biolinks Alliance. This work aims to create large-scale connections of conservation areas (or ‘biolinks’) across different tenures of landowners throughout Victoria.

Millie and Sophie explore one of these areas within a 14-kilometre corridor, a beautiful pocket of native grassland characteristic of this part of central Victoria. Millie reflects, “the area is filled with spectacular little islands of remnant vegetation like this one, they are so rich with species. But they are in a sea of landscape that is so incredibly changed, and without being connected to other ecosystems, this biodiversity can’t last”.

Sophie emphasises the need for biolinks to protect and retain these landscapes in the future, ‘it’s a bit like an animal in the zoo, it’s very pretty to look at but it’s not very functional, it’s not really going to be able to survive well into the future.’

These ecosystems need to support animals like sugar gliders and brush-tailed phascogales which move around the landscape to find food, mates, and to escape bushfires. Sophie emphasises that biolinks are nothing new, ‘we must remember that our landscapes were always once connected, but we fragmented them with agriculture and roads and urbanisation. Biolinks is about re-establishing these ecological connections that were once there and were once so important for the persistence of species.’

The Biolinks Alliance emphasises the importance of working with private landowners to reconnect their property back into the broader landscape. Sophie points out that the grassy productive patches of land that have been largely utilised for agriculture in Victoria are the only places where native grassland plants still exist, ‘these private lands contain species that aren’t represented in national parks. They only occur on these temperate grassy woodland ecosystems, which are by and large in private ownership.

Graham Connell is a farmer with a property just across the road, who is all in with Biolinks Alliance to join up with other landowners in the area to increase conservation capacity. He says, ‘if we can link up all these bits of remnant vegetation and more people come on board, with the help of experts, we will get there. But it is all about education.’ Graham has long known about the conservation potential of some areas of his property, but as for many landowners, undertaking ecological conservation can be daunting.

Sophie and the other scientists at Biolinks are thus helping to empower landholders like Graham to join in the movement. She says, ‘it presents a new way of doing conservation, it’s about bringing landholders along with you and giving them the information, inspiration and the confidence to do their part.’

Featured Plants:
MATTED BUSH-PEA  – Pultenaea pedunculata 
GRASS TRIGGERPLANT  – Stylidium graminifolium 
CHOCOLATE LILY  – Arthropodium strictum 
FLAX-LILY  – Dianella sp. 
YELLOW BOX  – Eucalyptus melliodora 

Featured Animals:
SUGAR GLIDER  – Petaurus breviceps 
BRUSH-TAILED PHASCOGALE  – Phascogale tapoatafa 
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