Valuing the wealth of restorative activity and using it as a source of inspiration

Abstract

This issue of EMR contains an unusually high number of articles relating to fauna and habitat management, including both research and on-ground projects. This issue’s two features, for example – one on improving fire regimes in the Kimberley, Western Australia (Legge et al., this issue), and the other on removing cats from Christmas Island (Hilmer et al.) – both represent cutting edge initiatives to improve habitats for native species, particularly threatened species. These are impressive initiatives that go beyond current best practice, breaking new ground to inspire others elsewhere to adapt the initiatives for their own areas. Also among the longer and shorter research reports in this issue are articles on the eradication of the House Mouse from Montague Island, WA (Cory et al. this issue); trials to improve reptile environments in the agricultural landscape by removing tree regrowth around rocky outcrops (Pike et al. this issue), and assessment of the longevity of habitat log piles (Grigg, this issue). All these seek to trial (or add insight into) possible solutions to current environmental challenges. While there are many papers on fauna and habitat topics in this issue, vegetation matters are not neglected. Longer articles include a timely review of the range of values of the networks of travelling stock routes and reserves in NSW and Queensland (Lentini et al. this issue) and a method of assessing the relative conservation values of wetlands in the Murray-Darling Basin to maximise the conservation management effectiveness of environmental water use (Peake et al. this issue). Shorter reports continue on the theme of vegetation assessment (Briggs et al., Kelly et al. and Lentini et al. this issue), and there are also a number of notes relating to revegetation techniques (So et al., Ruthroff et al. and Grose this issue), all of which are highly relevant to improving on-ground restoration outcomes. Indeed, the breadth of articles shows that there is a wealth of restoration management activity going on in Australia involving both plant and animal habitats and that managers are recognising the need to draw upon research expertise to enhance success. Researchers are also drawing increasingly on the special insights of managers. This two-way process is no better reflected than in this issue’s guest editorial by David Freudenberger and team from the practitioner organisation Greening Australia, who outline their initiative to become involved in the Ecological Society of Australia’s (ESA) 2010 conference. Among other things this involved the team pitching their own presentations to appeal to researchers interested in applied science and seeking to involve in symposia, researchers whose work would appeal to managers. The point of their article is to encourage other practitioner groups to become involved in this and other such conferences, to ‘collaborate with the great talent of ecological researchers in Australia’. While we cannot be blind to the increasing alienation and decline of natural environments across the globe, we need to be encouraged by the wealth of environmental repair work going on across the country and the rest of the world. If this number of projects can be represented in just one small issue of EMR, it stands to reason that there are many more projects out there in various stages of gestation, development and completion. As ecologists, policy makers and practitioners, we are doing our bit, but thankfully there are also many projects being undertaken in the related field of sustainability science and practice that have potential to address some of the causes of ecosystem decline, projects which can further inspire cross-disciplinary initiatives. (Please note that EMR is open to consider papers on any such work.) Readers may have missed the project summaries in the last issue and may be wondering whether EMR has lost an important element? The answer is no – EMR is developing a web-based project summaries facility, which will be similar in scope to our traditional paper project summaries but they will be much more readable, permanently archived and fully searchable and illustrated with coloured photos and maps etc. Many summaries are being uploaded onto the new website as I write, and when it is up and running, we will promote its launch through the ESA and EMR’s affiliate practitioner organisations. We hope that readers, once inspired by the summaries they read, will give some thought to whether one or more of their own projects, however small or incomplete, might suit a summary. In the meantime, please email your ideas for project summaries to me at emreditor@ecolsoc.org.au.