Introducing the Great Western Woodlands

The Great Western Woodlands area in South-Western WA

A global treasure in our backyard

The Great Western Woodland is the largest intact temperate woodland remaining on Earth. It is an internationally significant area of great biological richness.

The area covers almost 16 million hectares, (more than twice Tasmania) and is a continuous band of vegetation spanning the edge of the Western Australian ‘Wheatbelt’ to the Mulga country in north - the inland deserts to the northeast and the Nullarbor plain to the east.

Click here to see pictures of the Great Western Woodlands.

Extraordinarily Biodiverse

Woodlands on Honman Ridge Rd in the Great Western Woodlands. Photo: Barbara Madden

The Great Western Woodlands is an Ark for rare and threatened plants and animals, containing thousands of species found nowhere else on the planet.

Amazingly, more than 20% of all Australia’s flora species and 25% of Australia’s eucalypt species are found here.

Dozens of rare and threatened animals such as the Chuditch, Malleefowl, Red-tailed Phascogale and White-Striped Freetail bat call this region home.

Unfortunately Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinctions in the world and, nationally, bird numbers are declining rapidly - especially woodland birds.

That’s one reason why big intact regions like the Great Western Woodlands are so important to conserve.

The Western Quoll or Chuditch. Photo: Lochman Transparencies

The Great Western Woodlands is threatened

Poor fire management, feral animals, weeds, and habitat fragmentation caused by ad hoc infrastructure and development are all combining to have a negative and deteriorating affect on this landscape.

Without a science-based, best-practice plan for managing the Great Western Woodlands, which ensures both conservation and sustainable resource use, we may lose one of the worlds last great wild places.

The Great Western Woodlands Collaboration – an alliance of four conservation organisations - is working with the communities and stakeholders of the Woodlands to have this area protected, managed and promoted.

Learn more

• Click here to receive Great Western Woodland email updates
  

• Click here to download report  on The Extraordinary nature of GWW
  

• Click here to help conserve conserve our wild places