Parks - IUCN
Parks - IUCN
Parks - IUCN
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The Western Australian<br />
South Coast Macro Corridor<br />
Project – a bioregional<br />
strategy for nature<br />
conservation<br />
JOHN WATSON AND PETER WILKINS<br />
An innovative strategy of ‘bioregional initiatives’ to improve the viability of protected<br />
areas has been widely accepted by environmental land managers around the world.<br />
The South Coast Region of Western Australia has outstanding biodiversity values with<br />
an extremely high degree of endemism, much of which is represented within the<br />
Fitzgerald River National Park Biosphere Reserve, an internationally significant protected<br />
area. The wider community of the South Coast Region and relevant government<br />
agencies are working together on a bioregional initiative called the ‘Macro Corridor<br />
Project’ – a bold programme to increase viability of the existing protected area network<br />
by either maintaining existing linkages or re-establishing previous linkages between<br />
the biosphere reserve, major national parks, nature reserves, and other remnant<br />
vegetation across the region.<br />
T<br />
JOHN WATSON AND PETER WILKINS<br />
HERE HAS been a sad decline in the distribution and survival of many plants<br />
and animals on the Australian continent over the 200 years or so since European<br />
settlement (Commonwealth Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories,<br />
1996). For example, more mammal species have become extinct over the past 100<br />
years in Australia than in any other country (Bailey, 1996).<br />
This has been caused by a combination of three major factors:<br />
❚ Changes in land use, particularly extensive clearing of natural vegetation for<br />
agricultural purposes, and urbanisation mainly around the coastal fringes of the<br />
continent.<br />
❚ Changes in land management, for<br />
example the unavoidable introduction<br />
of ‘unnatural fire regimes’ (with regard to<br />
both frequency and intensity) and the<br />
edge effects resulting from roads and<br />
other access.<br />
❚ Introduced organisms, notably the<br />
European fox and the rabbit, and fungal<br />
pathogens such as Phytophthora<br />
cinnamomi, which has had a particularly<br />
dramatic impact on highly diverse<br />
heathland habitat.<br />
Collectively these factors have led to<br />
a total loss of natural vegetation in some<br />
areas, gross fragmentation and<br />
subsequent decline in quality in other<br />
7<br />
A 'Macro Corridor<br />
Project' is to be set<br />
up at the Fitzgerald<br />
River National Park.