celebrate leadership
Restoring precious urban bushlands Catherine McChesney Ecological Scientist Ryan Glowacki Bushland Manager
Wanju Wanju Nidja Noongar Boodjar ‘Welcome to Noongar Country’
K
ings Park (Kaarta Koomba) and Bold Park were once part of a vast and highly diverse coastal plain ecosystem, freely accessed and cared for by the Whadjuk people. Today, they are two of Perth’s largest remnant bushlands, dominated by Western Australia’s iconic banksia and tuart woodlands and forests, now recognised as Threatened Ecological Communities. Remarkably, these two bushlands continue to support a rich diversity of local flora, fauna and fungi, despite two centuries of degradation following European settlement. Together, they contain at least 457 native plant species, with 225 of these species being unique to one or other of the bushlands even though they are less than 10 km apart, demonstrating the extraordinarily high species diversity of the Swan Coastal Plain. Large areas of bushland located close to city centres are rare in the world, and Kings Park and Bold Park play an increasingly important role in improving our quality of life: park visitors gain much needed health and well-being benefits by engaging with nature, and on top of that, the
bushlands help us out by improving air quality, reducing the urban heatisland effect and storing carbon. They are ideally located to inspire conservation of biodiversity, which is critical at a time in history when we are facing the twin global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. Strong community support for the conservation of Kings Park and Bold Park bushlands has led to significant restoration activities by enthusiastic volunteers and a Bushland team since the late 1990s. The aim is to restore diverse, representative, regionally integrated and self-sustaining native ecological communities (to the extent that is possible in an urban setting) and in doing so, honour Whadjuk heritage. It is hoped that by improving the condition of the bushlands, they will become better refuges and ecological linkages for biodiversity, while also helping to restore people’s relationship with nature and guaranteeing the enjoyment of these special places by future generations. The inner-city Kings Park bushland (267 ha) has more than 80 restoration sites ranging from less than 1 ha to 40 ha.
The Friends of Bold Park Bushland have been working hard at the Eastern Gateway Restoration Precinct since the late 1990s. Photo: Melissa Mykytiuk
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For People & Plants | Special Issue | Spring 2021
Two significant restoration projects commenced in the late 1990’s: the WMC Resources – Mt Eliza Escarpment Restoration Project and the Alcoa – Kings Park Jarrah Tuart Restoration Project. Both were incredibly ambitious projects, with blankets of weeds being converted to native limestone heath on the steep and unstable slopes of Mt Eliza escarpment (Mooro Kaarta), and a former rubbish tip site being restored to eucalyptus - banksia woodland on the sandy plateau. Since the early 2000’s, restoration sites have been progressively prioritised across Kings Park’s large plateau and this work is ongoing. The Friends of Kings Park Bushland Carers work alongside the Bushland team across a range of these sites. Bold Park, which supports 437 ha of undulating woodlands, heaths and coastal dunes, has a greater diversity of ecological communities than Kings Park, but it also has more bushland in degraded condition. Accordingly, restoration is focused within nine main precincts that are larger than most of the Kings Park sites.
The Friends of Kings Park Bushland Carers meet regularly with the Bushland team to help restore sites across Kings Park bushland. Photo: Geoff Chidlow
