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WildCountry Scientific Principles

The WildCountry scientific framework is founded on the premise that the conservation of biodiversity and related natural heritage values demands a landscape-wide approach to conservation, recognising the importance of ecological connectivity at continental and regional scales.

The processes that sustain and regenerate ecological systems operate across a range of time scales and spatial scales. Many, if not most, work at spatial and time scales that far exceed those at which humans perceive, use and manage land and natural resources. Thus, many important ecological processes involve connections at scales not considered by conventional conservation planning and management.

Protection of Australia’s biodiversity into the long term is therefore more probable through conservation based on a multi-scaled, landscape and process-based framework.

Three key concepts are potentially relevant to the WildCountry scientific framework, namely:

(1) continental and regional connectivity of large core areas is required to support the long-term conservation requirements of spatially extensive ecological processes;
(2) complementary land management in surrounding landscapes; and,
(3) where necessary, restoration of natural processes and disturbance regimes, the control of invasive species, and the reintroduction of native species.

Eight ecological processes have been identified as key to the WildCountry approach to maintenance of healthy country.

1. Strongly interactive species

The Mallee Fowl (Leipoa ocellata) is a large and flightless bird that lives in many areas of semi-arid and arid Australia. It may play an important role in nutrient cycling in woodlands by raking and composting leaf litter. The birds do this to raise soil temperatures in their nest mounds where eggs are incubated.

Some species play key regulating roles in the habitats in which they live. This may occur from ‘top down’, for example, predators such as dingoes control grazing animals such as kangaroos; it may also be ‘bottom up’, with animals like fruit bats providing critical pollination services. It is important to ensure that such species persist in the landscape in sufficient numbers to perform these roles.

2. Hydroecology

The Fitzroy River is a major artery of the seasonally dry Kimberley region in northwest Australia. Photo: C. Roberts.

 

The presence and absence of water are critical in Australian ecology. There are important links between water, vegetation and wildlife. For instance, spring-fed wetlands in the arid zone form critical refugia for fauna and occasional floods are critical in enabling recruitment. In other regions vegetation plays a critical role in regulating groundwater.

3. Long distance biological movement

Australian Pelicans, Pelecanus conspicillatus, flock over the muddy but rich floodwaters of the Paroo River as it spreads out into one of the river’s ephemeral overflow lakes in far northwest NSW. Photo: W. Lawler.

 

Long distance movement is a key part of the life history of many Australian species. This is frequently determined by Australia’s unevenly distributed rainfall. Around half of Australia’s birds, for example, are non-residents and move over the landscape seeking resources. Conserving these species may require the protection of very large areas or critical stepping stones in the landscape.

4. Disturbance regimes

Burning undergrowth is a natural phenomenon in the open eucalypt forests of the wet/dry tropics (Cobourg Peninsula, Northern Territory). Photo: W. Lawler.

Natural disturbance regimes maintain diversity in many habitats. Fire is one critical source of disturbance, with frequency, spatial pattern and intensity of burns critical for maintenance of some species. Fire regimes across much of Australia have been altered in the past two centuries resulting in changes to the pattern and function of ecosystems. Likewise, floods are a natural phenomenon that maintains the health of rivers, floodplains and wetlands.

5. Climate change and variability

Rural tree decline in the Midlands, Tasmania. Overgrazing, drought and lack of seedling recruitment has led to loss of trees from this former eucalypt woodland. Photo: N. Fitzgerald.

 

Climate is a key environmental determinant, affecting ecological processes at various scales and thus influencing associated species distributions. A better understanding of the likely ecological interactions with climate will aid management decisions both in response to and for mitigation of human-induced climate change.

6. Land / coastal zone fluxes

Saltmarshes are influenced by marine and terrestrial processes. These ecosystems contain a unique assemblage of plants and animals. East Coast, Tasmania. Photo: N. Fitzgerald.

 

There is interaction and exchange between terrestrial and marine systems. For instance, rivers transport nutrients and sediments (and pollutants) from far inland to the sea. This affects productivity in the coastal zone. Conversely, seabirds can deposit large amounts of nutrient derived from the ocean on land. Meanwhile, in locations such as the Kimberley, large areas of shoreline have very strong tidal influences.

7. Long-term, spatially-extensive evolutionary processes

Patterns of wheat fields and tiny remnant native woodland in Mallee of Western Victoria, which has been cleared extensively with little provision of refuge habitat for wildlife and corridors linking remnants for wildlife movement. Photo: W. Lawler.

 

Evolution occurs as plants and animals adapt to changing conditions.  The ability of flora and fauna to do this is influenced by the extent of connection between the patches of available habitat.  Well connected habitats enable the interaction between different populations of a species, allowing genetic material to be exchanged by interbreeding.  In contrast, isolation will restrict the amount of genetic exchange between populations, but over a very long time can cause them to evolve independently, creating new species.

 
Nonetheless, in the short term, destruction and extensive fragmentation of habitat can reduce and divide up populations so that they do not have the capacity to adapt and thus become extinct.

8. Productivity

Field of lilies, Crinum species, on a creek flat in Gidyea (Acacia cambagei) woodland, Lochern NP, western Queensland. In the dry climate, the lilies survive droughts by a deep bulb, sprouting and flowering after rains. Photo: W. Lawler.

 

The living elements of landscapes vary with the quantity and rate of plant growth - ‘productivity’. Productivity is dependent on local conditions including rainfall, seasonal climatic patterns and soil characteristics. The uneven distribution of productivity in the Australian landscape – both in time and space – is an important consideration in conservation planning, particularly given the disproportionate loss and degradation of highly productive land compared to less arable land.

Some examples of WildCountry thinking are the Nature of Northern Australia report and the Great Western Woodlands report.