A number of large-scale linkage projects have been initiated in Australia. These commence with a focus on securing the conservation status of the component lands and progress to actively restoring habitats in cleared areas to improve connectivity.
Features that can increase connectivity include continuous wildlife corridors, ‘stepping stones’ and buffer zones around existing habitat areas.
Lessons and Limitations
- Large scale linkage programs combine conservation and restoration and require very long-term commitment, ongoing funding and engagement with communities and other stakeholders.
- All the constraints that apply to individual projects apply to large scale projects, multiplied by the scale and social and ecological complexity of the project.
- Minimum habitat area requirements of individual species need to be considered for optimal reinstatement of linkages in fragmented landscapes.
Examples of major terrestrial programs
(Information on component projects is available on the following major project websites)
1. Gondwana Link, Western Australia.
Gondwana Link is a collaborative, large scale program aiming to reconnect 1000km of healthy and resilient country across south-western Australia. It builds on many decades of conservation work, with over 900km of bushland already in place, and includes direct seeding and replanting substantial areas of degraded land.
Gondwana Link includes examples of restoration planning and implementation, including the identification of reference ecosystems.
ALSO SEE
reference ecosystems
2. Great Eastern Ranges Initiative, east coast Australia
The GER draws together over 180 community, industry, government and non-government organisations to promote landscape-wide connectivity along 3,600kms of Australia’s longest chain of mountainous landscapes from Victoria to Queensland.
https://ger.org.au/
3. Habitat 141, south-eastern Australia
Covering 18 million hectares across Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, and incorporating two national biodiversity hotspots, Habitat 141 is restoring connectivity at a landscape scale in the heavily fragmented Australian wheat-sheep zone.
The distinctive configuration of wilderness areas spanning a 700km north-south gradient provides one of the best opportunities to reconcile historic over-clearing for agriculture, and assuage the future impacts of climate change, and underpins our long-term restoration vision.
https://www.greeningaustralia.org.au/projects/habitat-141/
AND
https://media.wix.com/ugd/13798c_34940a4e48a0472ead1085c33f76f05f.pdf
4. Victorian Northern Plains Grasslands Protected Area Network
As a result of public and private land acquisition and covenanting, the area of grasslands conserved and managed within this Protected Area Network in Victoria has grown from virtually nothing in the mid-1990s to be in excess of 10,000ha.
https://grassyplains.net.au
AND
5. Tasmanian Midlands Restoration Project, Tasmania
Located in one of Australia’s 15 “Biodiversity Hotspots” the Midlands Restoration Project is a landscape-scale environmental restoration initiative designed to increase connectivity and biodiversity in the Northern Midlands, an area with a long history of agricultural production. The aim is to restore 6,000ha in two wildlife corridors across the Northern Midlands.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/emr.12522
Additional examples
Travelling Stock Routes rehabilitation, New South Wales
Once used by pastoralists when droving sheep to market, these areas are still used for grazing by landholders. As they are some of the best remaining examples of regional ecosystems in the agricultural landscape, they are now being managed to optimise both native ecosystem management and grazing.
https://emrprojects.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/learning-from-the-coreen-tsrs-and-scaling-up-biodiversity-recovery-works-at-hundreds-of-sites-in-the-riverina-nsw-2/
More than just a Long Paddock
https://emrprojects.wordpress.com/2019/09/30/more-than-just-a-long-paddock-fostering-native-vegetation-recovery-in-riverina-travelling-stock-routes-and-reserves-update-of-emr-feature/
Marra Creek waterponding, New South Wales
https://emrprojects.wordpress.com/2019/10/21/waterponding-the-marra-creek-nsw-rangelands-update-of-emr-feature/
Box gum woodland update
https://emrprojects.wordpress.com/2019/06/27/long-term-restoration-in-the-box-gum-woodlands-of-south-eastern-australia-update-of-emr-feature/
Grey Crowned Babbler landscape restoration, Victoria
https://emrprojects.wordpress.com/2019/09/24/2527/
Examples of major aquatic restoration programs
Great Barrier Reef, Queensland
This has demonstrated the success of the restoration approach of relying upon spontaneous natural regeneration.
https://emrprojects.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/conserving-and-restoring-biodiversity-of-the-great-barrier-reef-through-the-representative-areas-program-rap/
Reef Builder – a national program to rebuild Australia’s lost shellfish reefs
This is Australia’s largest marine restoration initiative to date – aiming to restore lost native shellfish reef ecosystems establishing 13 projects across Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland.
https://emrprojects.wordpress.com/2026/09/30/reef-builder-a-national-program-to-rebuild-australias-lost-shellfish-reefs/