"What we've done here through the restoration is increased the period of inundation, that's really key to supporting the recovery of a lot of these species, particularly ones that are threatened," fish biologist Lauren Brown said. The tiny, 35-millimetre-long freshwater cray is dependent on wetland vegetation to deposit its eggs. Many of the species returning to the wetland are endangered or threatened, and endemic to the area, like the western swamp crayfish. "It's also another place of refuge for all the animals in the Grampians National Park, the fact that there's going to be water here throughout the driest times of the year means it will be a critical drought refuge for such a big habitat area as the Grampians." "There's just so much life here, so all sorts of things are going to come in here to feed, but it's when they come in here to breed that you really start to see a change. The Nature Glenelg Trust team even collected a pair of copulating "growlers" - growling grass frogs - while sampling with dip nets in December. The scientists surmised that "global civilization is reaching important boundaries of what the Earth's biosphere can support" and that "effective management of freshwater resources and ecosystems must be ranked amongst humanity's highest priorities".īut reversing the process is still possible, which is exactly what Nature Glenelg Trust ecologists have been doing here in Australia. It was published as a warning to humanity. Wetlands are no exception, even though they are mass breeding grounds for all sorts of animals.Ī 2020 study authored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Scientists estimated that globally, 85 per cent of wetlands have been lost due to agriculture and human population expansion. They lose their place to live, eat, drink, and reproduce. They just find their way back there." Watching the animals come home to roostĪ reason that many species become extinct or endangered is that we destroy their habitat. "And the animals? They don't even need to wait to be invited. When viewing Walker Swamp from the new bird observatory, the full length of the jagged escarpments of the Grampians can be seen stretching for miles, edging the wetlands in an ornamental frame. The newly restored wetlands are within a natural floodplain of the Wannon River, and lie at the foot of the striking Serra Ranges in the Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park. "By 2018, we owned 1,000 acres out at Walker Swamp," Mr Bachmann said. A new pool of state funding became available just as the plantation land was changing hands. The pivotal moment came just after Mark spotted the platypus. It took three or four years of talking to groups and landowners, philanthropists and funding bodies before the stars aligned to finance the purchase of the plantation. "So on a day in August the locals got together and helped us build a temporary weir." Loading. "Astonishingly, the plantation managers themselves actually suggested that we could run a trial to hold a little bit of water in Walker Swamp. Mr Bachmann was astonished at how well those early negotiations took off. In 2014, this plucky NGO did things the country way the team knocked on the door of the plantation managers to have a chinwag. "It was a dry dust bowl effectively, but you could still see that it was a wetland, and it could be a wetland again." "There are no layers of bureaucracy we are a very lean operation, but we get a lot done." "We're rural people, practical people, we work with farmers a lot, science underpins what we do," Mr Bachmann said. It's not easy for a small, science-based environmental organisation like Nature Glenelg Trust to buy a 1,035-acre blue-gum plantation, strip it of trees, allow it to flood, and transform it back into wetlands. That platypus appeared at the right time, providing Mr Bachmann with inspiration in the face of what seemed, at that point, nearly impossible. "I thought it might be a water rat, but then I got a look at the bill and I thought, 'Oh my goodness, it's a platypus!'" he said. "I drove out after a big flood to see how our two trial swamps were looking, I'd just taken a few steps off the road and saw a black thing moving up along the bank of a deep drain," Mr Bachmann said. ![]() He and his team of scientists were three years into transforming a huge tract of agricultural land into the wetland it once was, but had no idea how their small, regional, not-for-profit could negotiate the final step: to buy 1,000 acres of commercial blue gum plantation.
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