Question: How do you know if you are restoring biodiversity?
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Our biodiversity globally is declining, and Australia holds the dubious record for the highest loss of mammal species of any country on earth.
![Introducing native plant species is helping restore biodiversity. Photo: Penny Stephens Introducing native plant species is helping restore biodiversity. Photo: Penny Stephens](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/9327bc23-ba98-49b9-9751-a20a6024bae1/r0_0_2000_1271_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Bush Heritage Australia, through its supporters and partners, is working hard to arrest and reverse this decline. A focus for this work occurs in the south-west Western Australian biodiversity hotspot between the Fitzgerald River and Stirling Range national parks.
Here an ambitious project has been operating for more than 15 years and is restoring cleared farmland with the aim of reconnecting the parks and also providing vital habitat to wildlife.
So how do we know if we are succeeding? It seems like a simple enough question but in fact it has taken years of planning, monitoring and re-evaluating to come up with answers. Of course every answer should have a question behind it but with many monitoring programs the questions can be hard to find!
The most straightforward monitoring occurs after the paddocks are sown with native plant seeds and we go out and record the number of plants of which species have germinated in each area. This is done using people on the ground and also from the air using drones. More complex surveys involving birds are also carried out each year as the vegetation develops.
Birds are captured and identification bands put on their legs which tell us if they are resident in the revegetated areas. We've found that birds are a good indicator of habitat restoration as they are quick to move into the new plant growth and thrive there, at least for the first 10 years after planting.
Other more difficult animals to survey are captured in traps and it is these animals that tell us if we have created habitat suited to ground dwelling small mammals and reptiles.
So how are we doing? We have created suitable habitat for 56 bird species, 12 native mammals, eight reptiles and five frogs. This compares with just six birds, two native mammals, three reptiles and one frog that used the paddocks prior to restoration. In addition, with the flourishing native plant growth we are seeing big decreases in weeds.
The results of the drone monitoring are telling us we have achieved up to 30 per cent native plant cover, which is heartening. We are adding species each year and in time we hope to have restored around 75 per cent of the fauna that would have inhabited the area prior to clearing.
Response by: Angela Sanders, ecologist, Bush Heritage Australia
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