Australian Wildlife Conservancy
AWC is the largest private owner of land for conservation in Australia, protecting endangered wildlife across 6.5 million hectares which includes the Kimberley, the Top End, Cape York, Kati Thanka-Lake Eyre and the southwestern forests.
Their work involves Ecological Health Monitoring and Research, Feral Cat and Fox Control, Feral Herbivore Control, Fire Management, Weed Control and Wildlife Translocations.
Their work also helps to preserve indigenous sacred sites due to their EcoFire Project which Bunderra has been supporting for the last two years.
Koala conservation in the Sunshine Coast
A significant revegetation project comprising thousands of eucalypts and other native trees being planted in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast has been undertaken. The project aims to increase habitat for the endangered Koala at Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s (AWC) Curramore Wildlife Sanctuary (Kabi Kabi country).
The sanctuary is located in south-east Queensland, a region which has been extensively cleared for agriculture and urban development. The land designated for reforestation was purchased by AWC in 2022, as part of a 26 hectare expansion of the sanctuary. While the central and western portion of the new section is healthy remnant forest, the eastern portion was utilised by previous owners as a cattle grazing paddock and is now a clear block with introduced pasture grasses.
“This project is a step in the right direction for helping to strengthen our Koala populations and create corridors which will in turn help other local species.”
“This restoration project is designed to increase and connect Koala habitat at Curramore, while also encourage other wildlife, such as bandicoots, gliders and owls, to return to the revegetated area,” said Andy. “In 10 years, we want the restoration area to be starting to resemble the adjacent native forests and become habitat for a diverse community of plants and animals, and not just a monoculture plantation of eucalypts.”
Savannas of the Kimberley
Working in the tropical savannas of the Kimberley, AWC conducts the country's largest and most success full non-government fire management program, dramatically improving fire patterns across millions of hectares.
Wildfires which cause damage to property and infrastructure, indigenous sacred sites and remove food and shelter for wildlife have been reduced by 55%, due to the twelve years of effort of AWCs’ EcoFire Project. Bird species such as Gouldian Finches and Purple-crowned Fairy wrens as well as several mammals have seen a significant recovery.
Bunderra is proud to be supporting this vital work for the second year.
Savannas of the Kimberley
Performing controlled burns, AWC began implementing EcoFire in the Kimberleys more than a decade ago, over 3 million hectares of the central Kimberley in early dry season. Neighboring pastoralists and indigenous communities have also been closely involved in design and delivery of the program. Some of the outcomes and benefits are:
Incidence of late dry season fires has halved
Areas brunt in late seasons fires has been reduced from 90% to 20-40%
Populations of many small mammals in Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary have substantially increased
Stabilization of endangered Gouldian Finches over the last ten years
Populations of threatened Purple-crowned Fairywrens have increased by 180%
The results are delivering substantial benefits for native plants and animals and also successfully controlling fire and feral animals.
Numbats are home again!
December 2019
Australian Wildlife Conservancy continues its work with rare and endangered species.
For the first time in over 60 years, central Australia is once again home to Numbats. In December 2019, 10 numbats were relocated from Scotia Wildlife Sanctuary in far western NSW and after receiving a thorough health check, were each released into their own shelter of a hollow log at Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary.
All of the numbats were fitted with radio collars and will be monitored in the coming months. Pending the success of this trial, more numbats will be moved to Newhaven and with stage 1 of the fenced area, which covers 9,400 hectares, this will support more than 200 numbats.
