The Helping Hands for the Sheoak project, supported by the Natural Resource Conservation Trust (NRCT) has had a kick-start with a partner tour of proposed planting sites and works undertaken to date.
The aim of the project is to continue the recovery of valuable Sheoak stands on private land, which will have multiple benefits, including providing more feed trees for the nationally endangered Glossy Black-cockatoo.
The Helping Hands team (left to right): Jim Phillipson (Rendere Environmental Trust), Misty Anderson (Moogji Aboriginal Council), Loulou Gebbie (Biodiversity Legacy), Josh Puglisi (FEVL), Louise Carey (Acting CEO Moogji Aboriginal Council) and Les McLean (Natural Resource Conservation Trust).Sheoak (older tree example) photo with thanks to David Francis via Flickr.
Robyn adds, “As part of the tour we visited two properties participating in the project and the Moogji Aboriginal Council nursery where Sheoaks for planting are being grown. The group also looked at a different protective guarding installed by the project, where heavy browsing of previously planted seedlings had been occurring.”
Far East Victoria Landcare Facilitator, Josh Puglisi, notes that “larger exclusion fences and other types of tree guards will be utilised across the sites as browsing by deer and macropods are the biggest threat to the establishment of the seedlings”.
This tree planting project builds on the Landcare, Birdlife Australia and DEECA Sheoak recovery works that were undertaken as part of the Black Summer bushfires response. Project sites range from Lakes Entrance and Marlo through to Wangarabell and Genoa in the east.
Around 10 years ago, former Melbourne schoolteacher Stuart Inchley and policymaker Victoria Johnson stumbled across a 300+ acre property for sale in the hills of South Gippsland (historically known as Land of the Lyrebird).
With a passion for conservation sustainability and climate justice, the couple made the life-changing decision to purchase the property, place a conservation covenant on it and act on its behalf as land stewards.
It took several years for Stuart and Victoria to properly survey the property, characterised by dense bush, cool temperate rainforest and steep terrain, learn about local species and appreciate just how unique it is.
At first, he thought there were maybe a few dozen, but with local ecologists from Gippsland Threatened Species Action Group and elsewhere, Stuart and Victoria have now counted over 260 individual plants. Given estimates suggesting that just 1,000 are left in Victoria, this is a major find that is attracting interest nationally and internationally.
Listen to leading Victorian ecologist, Karl Just, describe South Gippsland’s rainforests and species found within the Tarwin River Forest.
Back to reality
Unfortunately, Stuart and Victoria’s elation and finding so many Slender Tree-ferns was short-lived. Within just a few weeks they heard chainsaws and logging activities in the property next door.
These actions, by HPV Plantations – the largest private plantation company in Australia – came within a few metres of the couple’s fenceline; too close for comfort for the ferns, which can easily be damaged by being exposed to wind, rain and other elements.
Stuart and Victoria felt they had no choice but to launch a campaign to stop these actions, garnering huge community support through their Gippsland Forest Guardians website.
As at October 2024, Gippsland Forest Guardians, supported by Friends of the Earth, are currently embroiled in a court action relating to a Freedom of Information request, blocked by HPV, to review harvesting plans for the Turton’s Creek area.
Partnerships for protection
With Gippsland Threatened Species Action Group and other groups, Stuart and Victoria are also running campaigns to protect the last remnants of Cool Temperate Rainforest in South Gippsland, home to unique native species such as Gang-gangs, Powerful Owls, Pilotbirds, the rare and endangered Strzelecki Burrowing Crayfish and Strzelecki koala.
Typically dominated by Myrtle Beech, Southern Sassafras, Blackwood and eucalypts with a thick understorey of tree and ground ferns, these rainforests exist in high rainfall, higher altitude fertile environments. While they can still be found across Victoria, land clearing, fire and logging have reduced the amount of these forests in Victoria to a mere 0.08% of the state’s total area and are now listed as a threatened community under the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (1988).
In partnership with Prom Coast Ecolink and local landholders, in 2024 the Gippsland Threatened Species Action Group received a generous grant from the Wettenhall Environment Trust to undertake a mapping survey of Cool Temperate Rainforest on Stuart and Victoria’s property and three adjoining Trust for Nature properties (totalling 850 over acres) to map the distribution of Slender Tree-ferns.
We’re all behind Stuart and Victoria and the commitment they have made to protecting the environment and building connections with the local community to raise awareness of BDL and the need to strengthen local biolinks.
Given its commitment to landscape-scale ecological protection and the development of community biolinks, it follows that Biodiversity Legacy (BDL) would also consider the plants and animals that depend on these landscapes and what more can be done to protect flagship and icon species.
And so this year, with the Rendere Environmental Trust, BDL agreed to host the start-up of a Threatened Species Action Hub, which will bring conservation organisations, local communities, government and non-government entities together to develop cross-sector, cross-discipline and cross-border initiatives to drive real improvements in threatened species recovery.
To this end, the BDL team is expanding to include a threatened species coordinator and a grants and partnership team who will leverage existing relationships with groups connected to the Ecolands Collective and a broad network of on-ground conservation organisations.
This work will align with and support Victorian Government programs such as the Icon Species Initiative and the Nature Fund, which supports high-impact projects aligned to the government’s Biodiversity 2037 goals.
First grant awarded
In September 2024 the new team secured their first Nature Fund grant to establish a major initiative focused on reversing the decline of Spot-tailed Quoll (STQ) in Gippsland, Victoria.
The STQ is a culturally significant carnivorous marsupial with a historically wide distribution across Victoria. However, the population has declined dramatically over the past 30 years and monitoring suggests numbers continue to decline.
Sleeping Spot-tailed QuollThe project will focus on protecting Spot-tailed Quolls in the last stronghold of the species – East Gippsland.
The 10-year project, which aims to identify pathways for STQ recovery in East Gippsland, will be delivered in partnership with Wildlife Unlimited and Odonata as a demonstration of BDL’s cross-sector, multi-agency and First Nations partnership approach.
It is anticipated that at least four icon species will be included in the action hub by the first half of 2025, with BDL teams working furiously behind the scenes to secure baseline funding.
Other partnerships
BDL is also collaborating with organisations such as the Gippsland Threatened Species Action Group (GTSAG), which has a strong track record and decades of experience delivering on-ground conservation.
In 2024, the Rendere Environmental Trust supported the creation of GTSAG’s new website, which profiles local species, key threats and what actions landholders can take to protect them. GTSAG is also focused on building stronger biolinks by working directly with landholders and farmers.
Expect to hear more about the Hub in 2025!
Banner: Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby with thanks to Brett Mills.
Through necessity, the early settlers viewed the Australian landscape through an economic lens, assessing the natural value of the land in terms of what they could extract from it.
Now, as we shift our focus to natural capital – the air, water, soil, plants and animals that essentially keep us alive – we are beginning to value more diverse landscapes. But not all get the attention they deserve.
A case in point are the muddy, mucky landscapes known as coastal saltmarsh. Despite providing an astonishing array of ecosystem services, they remain greatly undervalued. But why?
Blue carbon landscapes
Broadly defined as a mosaic of coastal ecosystems, saltmarsh is one of the most productive ecosystems on Earth, likened to kidneys or lungs in terms of its ability to filter pollution and intercept nitrogen run-off from farms.
In South Gippsland Victoria, this lung effect can be seen from above as we look down at the 67,186-hectare site of Corner Inlet. Adjacent to Wilsons Promontory and the Nooramunga Marine and Coastal Park, Corner Inlet is one of 64 wetland areas listed as a Wetland of International Importance under Ramsar Convention.
Fringing the Inlet and the 40 plus sandy barrier islands within the inlet are some of the most floristically diverse coastal saltmarshes in the country; marshes that not only reduce farm run-off and provide a nursery for young fish, but capture and store carbon at rates 30-50 times higher than the equivalent area of soil in terrestrial forests – a process known as blue carbon.
Listen to Nooramunga Land & Sea Botanist, Karl Just, talk about key saltmarsh species.
Reframing notions of value
According to Melbourne University wetland ecologist, Paul L. Boon, Australians have always undervalued saltmarsh. He uses the folktale of Cinderella to describe how they are perceived as the ugly or poor stepsister of inland wetlands – wastelands standing between us and our desire to live on the coast and extract resources from it.
Viewed through European eyes, saltmarshes certainly ain’t pretty; in Cinderella’s words, “When they look at me, they see a mess”.
But if you look closer you can see the jewels in the landscape, like the samphire or glasswort whose jointed branches look like strings of coloured beads. Or the red seablite that mixes with the samphire to create rivers of red marsh.
A population at risk
While Corner Inlet retains 80% of its saltmarshes, a salutary lesson can be learned if we look west to Anderson Inlet, where 60% of the marshes have been lost. Or further north to Botany Bay – ironically named for its biodiversity – where losses in some areas are reported as 100%.
However, some plants within the Corner Inlet, including the iconic grey or white mangrove, are endangered. Perversely, if the saltmarshes are not managed well, the system gets out of balance and mangroves take over. So these systems need to be managed carefully.
An island of hope
In 2022, leading Victorian botanists Tim D’Ombrain and Karl Just got wind of a potential sale of Little Dog Island off the coast of Hedley within Corner Inlet.
Formerly owned by a group of developers who attempted to build an eco-resort on the island – complete with 9-hole golf course – the 62-hectare island was abandoned when the project failed. It lay idle for 14 years until Tim and Karl invited Federation University paleoecologist Professor Peter Gell, Rendere Environmental Trust Strategic Director Jim Phillipson and Carbon Landscapes co-director Dr Steve Enticott to collaborate on a new conservation project.
Together they formed a not-for-profit organisation called Nooramunga Land & Sea to hold the island in trust for future generations with provisions to enable community engagement and collective land stewardship.
The ‘saltmarsh crew’ are now repairing damage caused by the development and eradicating feral animals and weeds. They’re also investigating opportunities to secure other private properties in the area.
“We see these landscapes as ecological gems in the jewel that is Corner Inlet,” says Jim Phillipson. “They are beautiful and highly productive landscapes that support human health and wellbeing. But they are fragile and easy to disrupt. To protect them, we need to value them and promote their intrinsic value – just by being left alone.”
Like other areas within the Inlet, Little Dog Island attracts a wide range of migratory birds. It may also provide habitat for the critically endangered Orange-bellied Parrot, which feeds on plants that grow in salty or alkaline conditions such as saltmarshes.
Expectations are high that the Parrot will be spotted on Little Dog Island, with members of the conservation crew participating in BirdLife Australia’s Winter Surveys. The crew are also exploring opportunities to secure other properties in the Inlet to build biolinks and connections for plants, animals and people.
*With thanks to Professor Paul Boon, whose research on saltmarsh is published in the CSIRO journal Marine & Freshwater Research and Royal Botanic Garden Sydney journal, Cunninghami
