Case Studies

Finding common interests among many entities and communicating with different types of partners can lead to the ecological restoration of connectivity; long-term efforts, including monitoring, can be ensured through endowments.

The East Coast Conservation Corridor (ECCC) is a landscape- scale ecological network for conservation extending 280 km north–south from Cape Portland to Cape Pillar, covering 21⁄2 degrees of latitude on the East Coast and hinterland of Tasmania. The existing protected area system and ongoing conservation projects provide a solid foundation for realising what is known as the ‘WildCountry vision’ of a protected connected landscape in North East Tasmania (Figure 1). In 2012, noted natural heritage expert Peter Hitchcock stated that “the East Coast connectivity corridors have been assessed collectively to have National Heritage significance – one of the more important latitudinally connected tracts of native habitat in Australia.”

While the ECCC still has a high level of landscape connectivity, it is under threat from a variety of impacts, including expansion of intensive agriculture and associated dams, forestry (plantations and native forest), coastal development, invasive plants and feral animals. The challenge is to extend the existing protected area system to limit the extent and impact of threats and to strategically restore areas important for connectivity.

The approach is focused on holistic cross-tenure conservation land management with an emphasis on increasing the extent and improving the condition and landscape connectivity of native vegetation and habitat. Identifying and addressing the physical and ethical causes of ecological decline, such as human population growth, consumption and the ideological support of growth economics in a finite world, is part of the strategy.

The North East Bioregional Network is an entirely voluntary organisation that works with about 45 government entities, communities, companies, private organisations and private landholders on issues where common ground can be found. They are in the process of establishing an endowment fund that will enable a long-term commitment to protect and restore the unique flora, fauna and landscapes of eastern Tasmania.

The Skyline Tier restoration project is returning 2,000 ha of non-native radiata pine plantation back to biodiverse native forest (Figure 2). By re-establishing the native ecosystem, this ecological corridor will reconnect protected coastal and hinterland areas. The land is owned by the government but leased to a private company, and now co-managed by the company and the North East Bioregional Network.

Activities that have contributed to improved landscape connectivity in the ECCC area since 2005 include:

• Creation of 30 permanent conservation covenants and 60 registrations under the Land-for-Wildlife program on private land.
• Facilitation of the employment and training of over
  80 people over the last five years through ecological restoration projects of the North East Bioregional Network, which has had significant ecological, social and economic benefits and helped consolidate conservation as a highly beneficial activity in remote rural communities.
• Prohibition of new subdivisions within 1 km from the coast in the Break O’Day municipality, thus maintaining an ecological corridor between the coast and hinterland.
• Establishment of a North East Tasmania Land Trust as a non-government organisation to purchase and receive tax-deductible donations of private land for nature conservation.
• Transfer of management of over 100,000 ha of public native forest from the department of Forestry to that of National Parks and Wildlife in North East Tasmania (Figure 1).
• Release of a conservation action plan for the Break O’Day municipality.
• Consideration of connectivity conservation plans in municipal land planning.
• Production of connectivity conservation plans that explicitly seek to protect wildlife corridors and landscape linkages from inappropriate development and are legally binding in municipal planning schemes.