How South Australia is restoring lost biodiversity

If you need a refresher, biodiversity is the interconnected web of life on Earth – encompassing all the plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms we share the planet with and the ecosystems they form.

Unfortunately, biodiversity is under threat across the world. The United Nations reports that nature is declining more rapidly than ever before and species extinctions are accelerating.

In South Australia, rules around land clearance were not established until the 1980s, but by that time more than 70% of our state’s native vegetation – critical for biodiversity – had been cleared in our agricultural regions.

Since European colonisation it’s estimated that 73 species – 41 plants and 32 animals – have become extinct in South Australia. Another 1,100 species are threatened with extinction (and this is thought to be an underestimate).

While losing individual species may not be immediately noticeable, it can have wider and cascading effects on others that relied on it for food or shelter.

It’s critical that we protect our biodiversity. It gives us everything we need to live, including the air we breathe, the food we eat, the materials we build with, and modern medicine, while also underpinning the economy.

However, it isn’t enough to preserve and protect what we have left. Wherever it’s possible, it’s important that we try to restore what we’ve lost.

How SA is restoring lost biodiversity

The good news is that there are plenty of projects underway to restore species populations, their habitats and ecosystem function.

1. A haven for threatened species

Off South Australia’s spectacular west coast, an island refuge is being created for nationally threatened species.

Flinders Island – offshore of Elliston on Eyre Peninsula – is transforming into a safe haven. The island is in the midst of an eradication program removing predatory feral cats from the island and other pest species. Once this is complete, threatened species will be introduced, some of which previously inhabited the island.

The 'built-in’ biosecurity of the island, and the support of visitors and the community adhering to biosecurity procedures, ensures the island will remain pest free, providing the ultimate predator free habitat for our native threatened species.

The project is jointly funded by the Australian Government, the Department for Environment and Water (DEW) and the Eyre Peninsula Landscape Board in partnership with the island’s owners, the Woolford family.

The Woolford family are dedicated to creating a haven for threatened species and is working with a skilled team to enhance the island’s ecosystem.

2. Building resilience in our ranges

Bounceback, led by DEW, is South Australia’s longest running landscape-scale biodiversity program, protecting and restoring the semi-arid environments of the Flinders, Olary and Gawler ranges.

Since inception more than 30 years ago, a coordinated pest animal management program across 900,000 hectares has enabled the recovery of iconic and threatened plants and the restoration of habitat across the semi-arid ranges. This has brought the yellow-footed rock-wallaby (Andu) back from the brink of extinction – populations in Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park have increased tenfold.

Thanks to a partnership with The Foundation for Australia’s Most Endangered Species (FAME), the program has also been able to:

• Reintroduce the western quoll (Idnya) – extinct in South Australia for more than a century – to Ikara-Flinders Ranges and the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges national parks.
• Re-establish brushtail possums (Virdla) in Ikara-Flinders, where they were last seen in 1950s.
• Reintroduce red-tailed phascogales in Gawler Ranges National Park, where they are now breeding and establishing themselves in the wild.

Bounceback’s successful partnership with FAME is also helping to conserve bassian thrushes, short-tailed grasswrens, purple-spotted gudgeon and populations of threatened plants.

3. Giving threatened fish a fighting chance

Landscapes Hills and Fleurieu is working to recover some of the region's small but significant freshwater fish species.

In Back Valley Creek, near Victor Harbor, they are collaborating with Nature Glenelg Trust and local landholders to protect a genetically distinct, isolated population of Southern Pygmy Perch.

This small fish, which grows to about 7 cm long, is at risk of extinction. During summer, when there is little or no water flow, populations become confined to small, isolated pools free of predatory fish, where they remain until sufficient rainfall restores flows, usually in winter.

Recovery efforts are focused on habitat restoration along the creek to improve water quality and vegetation, along with livestock exclusion fencing and alternative stock water sources to protect critical summer refuge pools and reduce degradation caused by year-round stock access.

To help the Southern Pygmy Perch survive summer dry periods, more than 200 fish have been moved to safe surrogate dams owned by local landholders. Recent surveys have found the fish are breeding in these refuge sites, providing hope for the long-term survival of the population.

The Murray Hardyhead – another small freshwater fish – was once widespread across the Murray-Darling Basin but has experienced a dramatic decline due to habitat degradation and predation by introduced species.

To protect this native fish, Landscape Hills and Fleurieu is working with partners through its Back from the Brink program to expand a breeding program across multiple waterbodies and develop secure refuge sites in surrogate dams on private properties that are free of predatory fish.

Back from the Brink is funded by the Australian Government Natural Heritage Trust and delivered by Hills and Fleurieu Landscape Board, a member of the Commonwealth Regional Delivery Partners panel.

4. Bringing the southern bell frog back from the brink

Once common throughout south-eastern Australia, the Southern Bell Frog disappeared from the lower Murray during the Millennium Drought. Landscapes Hills and Fleurieu and project partners are continuing efforts to return the threatened species to the region through the Back from the Brink  project.

A major milestone was recently reached when 40 adult Southern Bell Frogs were brought from New South Wales, increasing the captive breeding population at Clayton Bay. The new arrivals will help strengthen the program's genetic diversity and support future reintroduction efforts.

Before joining the breeding program, the frogs underwent treatment for chytrid fungus, a disease that is a leading cause frog declines across Australia. Project partners have also made a range of improvements to breeding enclosures at Clayton Bay, including habitat enhancements and environmental conditions designed to better mimic natural wetland systems.

Habitat restoration continues at key sites in Clayton Bay and Currency Creek, helping prepare managed wetlands for future releases. Partnerships with the Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal Corporation also remain an important part of the project, supporting release planning and long-term wetland recovery.

The next phase of the project will focus on trial releases and ongoing monitoring to help reestablish self-sustaining Southern Bell Frog populations in the lower Murray.

Back from the Brink is funded by the Australian Government Natural Heritage Trust and delivered by Hills and Fleurieu Landscape Board, a member of the Commonwealth Regional Delivery Partners panel

5. Re-vegetating native sheoaks on Eyre Peninsula

The Eyre Peninsula Landscape Board has been undertaking on ground works as part of a federally funded project to restore and enhance the distribution of Drooping Sheoak Grassy Woodlands on calcrete, across the western part of the region. This critically endangered ecological community spans the coast from Streaky Bay to Coffin Bay, with only 3% of its original distribution remaining.

Revegetation works have involved collaborating with schools and communities to plant hundreds of tube stock at sheoak restoration sites in Streaky Bay, Calpatanna Waterhole Conservation Park and Lake Newland Conservation Park. Under this project the Board has also partnered with private landowners and DEW to direct seed more than 160 hectares of Drooping Sheoak Grassy Woodland across sites from Streaky Bay to Lake Hamilton

In Streaky Bay, Elliston and Wudinna, awareness of the project has also been raised through a ‘plant swap’ where landholders have been encouraged to remove the invasive pest plant gazania from their property. In return landholders received sheoak tubestock and groundcover species as a way to boost community awareness of the project, invasive weed control and sheoak revegetation.

Feral herbivore impacts are also being managed under the project through fencing, aerial control and ground control programs across an area spanning more than 40,000 hectares.

The Drooping Sheoak Grassy Woodland project is funded by the Australian Government Natural Heritage Trust and delivered by the Eyre Peninsula Landscape Board, a member of the Commonwealth Regional Delivery Partners Panel.

6. Restoring habitat to 're-bird' the Mount Lofty Ranges

Did you know that while the Mount Lofty Ranges represent only 1% of South Australia, it is home to over 50% of the state’s bird species?

Unfortunately, many of these bird species are at risk, with 78 declining species and 12 already regionally extinct.

ReBird the Ranges is a collaboration between conservationists, researchers and government with an aim to restore woodland bird populations and habitats across the Mount Lofty Ranges.

The local community is also encouraged to take an active role in species recovery, through hands-on habitat restoration and supporting conservation projects.

Some critical partner projects include:

• Revegetating heathland in Deep Creek National Park to support the western beautiful firetail, Mount Lofty Ranges chestnut-rumped heathwren and Mount Lofty Ranges southern emu-wren
• Reconstructing 550 hectares of grassy woodlands at Frahns Farm, led by Bio·R, with tens of thousands of grasses, shrubs and trees planted each year thanks to the help of dedicated volunteers.
• Revegetating low-rainfall grassy woodland in priority areas of the eastern Mount Lofty Ranges, to support the diamond firetail, hooded robin, restless flycatcher, jacky winter, southern whiteface, chestnut-rumped thornbill and brown treecreeper.

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