Threatened native animals which have long been missing from the grassy hills around Canberra are set to thrive once more, under a new agreement to restore the family-owned Wandiyali~Environa Wildlife Sanctuary. This week, Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) announced a ten-year collaboration with owners of the sanctuary, the Larcombe family, with a shared vision to bring back the site's missing biodiversity.
Under the agreement, AWC will help shape conservation plans for the sanctuary, including a strategy for restoring species which have gone locally extinct. Small mammals including bandicoots, antechinus, bettongs, quolls, and several species of native rodents, as well as threatened frogs, will be among the species assessed as candidates for reintroduction. The project will also support important research into the factors that contribute to successful species reintroductions.
Located at the intersection of Ngambri, Ngarigo, Ngunnawal and Ngunawal country, Wandiyali consists of 300 hectares of open woodland and grassland communities, including a significant patch of critically endangered Box Gum Grassy Woodlands. It protects habitat for threatened species including Swift Parrot, Gang-Gang, Pink-tailed Worm Lizard and Small Purple-pea, as well as a section of Jerrabomberra Creek.
The Larcombe family have a connection to the 300-hectare property that stretches back three generations to 1924.
"I've lived here nearly my whole life," says Carolyn Larcombe, founder of Wandiyali Restoration Trust, a nonprofit set up to manage the sanctuary. "My brothers and I feel a very strong connection to this place, and we are doing as much as we can to look after it."
Significant conservation work has already been undertaken at Wandiyali to help native vegetation recover and increase biodiversity. With funding from the Federal Government's Environmental Restoration Fund, a 9.9-kilometre fence has been built to exclude feral cats and foxes as part of a 'safe haven' project.
"The fence is critical for projects like this," according to AWC Chief Executive, Tim Allard. "We know that for a whole host of small mammals, feral cats and foxes are the number one threat to their survival. Working together at Wandiyali, we have the opportunity to apply best-practice conservation in this beautiful landscape and turn things around to actually increase the biodiversity that's here."
AWC manages a network of large, feral predator-free, fenced areas around the country, including projects at Newhaven in Central Australia and Mt Gibson in WA. The nonprofit leads the largest program of wildlife reintroductions in Australia, which has seen over 50 populations of 20 threatened and locally extinct mammal species re-established across ten locations.
