ANU WildCountry Research and Policy Hub

The Australian National University WildCountry Hub (WildCountry Hub) is located in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the ANU in Canberra.  The Hub was established in 2005, and is lead by Professor Brendan Mackey.

The aims of the WildCountry Hub

The WildCountry Hub is a new academic initiative for advancing knowledge and innovative approaches to long term and large scale conservation planning and policy inclusive of scientific understanding about key environmental and ecological processes.  The Hub is designed to build upon existing ANU research activities, promote linkages both within interested areas of ANU and among a growing body of external collaborators, and facilitate the transfer and application of scientific research and development outcomes to the community of conservation stakeholders.

ANU Hub Research Projects

Part funded by The Wilderness Society though a generous grant from the Dara Foundation, the WildCountry Hub is currently developing an ecological regionalisation of Australia.

Using data layers including geology, soils, topography, vegetation, land cover and surface water resources that have been integrated into the GIS-based AEGIS – Australian Environmental Geographic Information System, a new analysis has been developed to predict where best to concentrate our conservation efforts.
 
Ecological Regionalisation of Australia: A landscape ecosystem approach

In order to protect and restore biodiversity, we must understand how landscapes work in terms of both the environmental drivers of ecosystem processes (e.g. climate, soil, topography) and the response of ecosystems to natural and human changes. 

A new approach to “eco-regionalisation” draws on new methods for analysing, classifying and mapping continental patterns in landscape ecosystem drivers and responses, and provides an integrated perspective of the Australian landscape.

Eco-regionalisations provide the basis for explicit environmental “gap” analysis identifying priority landscapes for conservation efforts. They also serve as a geographic framework for developing regional conservation plans, and can compliment traditional bioregionalisations such as the 'Interim Bioregionalisation of Australia' (IBRA) and other landscape classifications undertaken at the state level.

ARC Linkage Grant

In 2004 the Commonwealth Government awarded a substantial Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage grant to the ANU, in partnership with The Wilderness Society.  This grant funds a three year program investigating WildCountry research questions. 

ANU WildCountry Research Grant Awards

In July 2006, The Wilderness Society provided two "WildCountry Research Grant Awards" to support PhD research projects conducted at the ANU.  The awards where given to:

Enzo Guarino for a PhD Project entitled  “Conservation Genetics, Comparative Phylogeograpy and Bioregionalisation of Australia’s Biodiversity Hotspot”; and

Kara Youngentob for a PhD Project entitled   “Investigating the Effects of Foliage Chemistry and Landscape Context on the Distribution of Arboreal Marsupials using HyMap Hyperspectral Remote Sensing”.