Return To Native Abundance

Returning the abundant wildlife of the "sweet spots".

For more info on the embryonic Sweet Spot movement, which aims to see the regeneration and reestablishment of significant Indigenous lands along traditional songlines, see the article and discussion at Native Land Action. It must be acknowledged that although this blog focuses on "wildlife" as a topic in isolation, that is not the way we see it in the big picture; we reject conservationist constructs of "wilderness" that ignore prior Indigenous occupation and land management, thereby reinforcing the premise of Terra Nullius that was used to justify theft of this land. This blog is part of a series that aims to explore the holistic nature of native land systems.

I have been lucky enough to witness how wonderfully well Australia's wildlife will return to places if they are given a hand. Even in places where they have been absent for many years due to the loss of their homes, once habitat restoration has been undertaken the native animals return remarkably well. Everyone who I have known who has witnessed this has shared the same joy, even people who admit that prior to watching the animals return they weren't very interested in native wildlife. It truly is an experience which makes life better. I will post another article on an example of just how well wildlife can return soon.

However the sad reality is that an appallingly small area of Australia is being managed for the good of our wildlife, as it seems that the welfare of our native creatures is a very low priority for the vast majority of Australians. I worked for twelve years as a Landcare Coordinator (and similar roles) in several places around Australia, and in that time I visited many hundreds of properties. It makes me very sad to say that only a handful of the owners of these properties were interested in managing the necessary proportion of their properties for the good of our wildlife, even though doing as such would have had no negatve effect on their income production. Even sadder is the fact that many of the smaller property owners weren't even interested in income from their properties, but still they weren't interested in sharing with wildlife in any meaningful way. However I do believe that there are plenty of people who own land who are interested in our wildlife. At Sweet Spot we hope to meet and work with such people.

As stated in a previous article I am particularly interested in primo land on our river flats and adjacent hills. It is such a sad situation that our wildlife is almost completely absent from these areas, with some species now missing altogether from many places. And the former abundance of some of these animals makes the situation even more disgraceful. An example was told to me about the Rat Kangaroo or Bettong by an old bloke from the Gresford district, a cattle grazing district which is about 100km NNW of Newcastle, adjacent to the Barrington Tops. He said up until about 60 years ago they were in very large numbers, but before everyone realised, they were all but gone. He said he was working for State Forests at the time, and when he was asked to help some researchers in the 1950's who were studying the Rat Kangaroos, he agreed because he believed he would be able to help them find the creatures easily. However not a single specimen was to be found across the farmed areas of the district, and only a few were found in the adjacent State forests of the Barrington Tops.

Recently I have worked with a university student to investigate possible reasons for the disappearance of the animals, and we decided that the loss of native tubers and fungi, the Rat Kangaroos major food, from the landscape was a major cause. We supposed that this was due to a destruction of soil and vegetation structure to provide these foods through landclearing, fertiliser use and other factors. In regards to fungi, a link between the quality of forest cover (and the associated woody organic matter in the soil) and the abundance and diversity of fungi was indisputable. The ability to restore the land to cater for the fungi, and therefore the Rat Kangaroos, while continuing to run a successful grazing enterprise, is easy to achieve. Indeed, managing for increased native tree cover in a district once famed for its timber is simple sensible from an income perspective. And with the trees will also come other creatures struggling for existence in that district, such as several species of owls including the Powerful Owl and Masked Owl, and other birds of prey such as the Red Goshawk. Topknot Pigeons, another animal of formerly huge numbers in the district will be another beneficiary, as will several types of gliders such as the Greater Glider and Yellowbellied Glider, and the list goes on.

Assisting wildlife is also enirely possible on cropped land. I know of several sugarcane farmers in far north Queensland who have done a fantastic job of restoring their land which has seen the return of a wide range of creatures, including owls, fish, cassowaries and crocodiles. Hopefully one day the Tree Kangaroos can return as well. Please let us know of other examples that you know about.

The fact is however, that the primo river flats of eastern Australia are almost completely devoid of such habitat, please contact us if you can help restore these Sweet Spots.