Restoring woodland bird habitat in central Victoria – project update
Posted on 27 June, 2019 by Jacqui
In recent years, Connecting Country’s landscape restoration projects have focused on protecting and enhancing habitat for woodland birds. As many of you know, habitat loss is the single greatest threat to woodland birds, and is exacerbated by other threats including invasive pest plants and animals, and climate change.
That’s where Remnant Rescue: restoring woodland bird habitat in central Victoria comes in. As the title suggests, the project aims to restore habitat for woodland birds across the Mount Alexander region on public and private land. We are working with volunteer landholders across the region to support restoration of priority habitat on their properties.
The main focus of this three-year project is weed and rabbit control to promote natural regeneration of native species. Connecting Country has met with selected landholders to assess their properties and develop management actions tailored to their needs. Now, with our project partners Dja Dja Wurrung, we’re preparing for weed and rabbit control, fencing to exclude stock from priority habitat and strategic revegetation of key missing understorey plants. Plants have arrived at our depot in the last couple of weeks ready for planting.
Tree Violet (Melicytus dentatus), a hardy species that provides dense cover for small woodland birds (photo by Jacqui Slingo)
The project will cover more than 60 hectares of private land with complementary works across 40 hectares of public land managed by Parks Victoria.
Connecting Country is proud to oversee the project in collaboration with our project partners: local landholders, Dja Dja Wurrung, Trust for Nature, Parks Victoria, and the Victorian government’s Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.
This project has been funded by the Victorian Government’s Biodiversity Response Planning program and is helping to ensure that Victoria’s natural environment is healthy, valued and actively cared for.
From left to right: Hopbush (Dodonea viscosa), Hedge Wattle (Acacia paradoxa) and Spreading Wattle (Acacia genistifolia), just a few of the locally indigenous species arriving at our depot this week (photo by Jacqui Slingo)
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