Habitat 141 Connecting the Outback to the Ocean
Habitat 141, a plan to link national parks from the outback to the ocean, is the largest environmental restoration project ever tackled in Victoria.
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AINTING a picture of the state of Victoria’s natural environment is a grim job. It’s harder knowing the diversity the Victorian landscape used to offer. The same marketing ploy used by Tourism Victoria, depicting the state as a jigsaw puzzle offering a “multitude of sensory experiences”, could just as easily be used to describe our natural environment. The pieces would include the Grampians, Wilsons Prom and our spectacular coastlines. Other pieces would be made up of the mallee desert country, box-ironbark forests of Central Victoria and the snow-capped alps in winter. What such a puzzle would also show is just how many pieces we’ve lost. The grasslands that once stretched from the edges of what is now Melbourne to the SA border are probably the largest missing piece. Noted for their economic potential by Matthew Flinders as far back as 1802, heavy grazing, urban development and intensive agriculture have all taken a toll. Less than 1% of Victoria’s high quality native grasslands now remain. Eight of the 26 mammals that depended on grassy ecosystems are no longer with us. Already under pressure from habitat fragmentation, weeds and feral animals, our natural environment now has a new threat to deal with – climate change. This new danger is likely to force shifts in the distribution of animal and plant species, alter ecosystems and open up areas to increased weed invasion. Studies have already identified 90 animal species in Australia at risk from l Mildura climate change, more than a third of them found in Victoria. The number is likely to be much greater. In anyone’s book this is a depressing l Horsham picture. We need big ideas and fast. Habitat 141, extending into SA and l Portland NSW and named for the 141st longitude line that parallels the Victoria/SA border, is a bold new vision to restore rivers, wetlands and bushland and reconnect some of our most ecologically important parks and reserves.
Rockface and landscape near Mt Arapiles. Photo: Steffen Schultz