<
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/indigenous-people-and-ngo-grow-a-wildlife-corridor-in-the-worlds-oldest-rainforest/>
"Indigenous ranger Jason Petersen remembers how he used to watch the world’s
oldest rainforest in wonder as a child. When the rains arrived, they would wash
the dust from the trees, revealing the lush colors of the forest. Now, as an
adult, he says he hopes his son will experience the same awe as he plants a new
wildlife corridor on this same land.
“I hope [our children] will be able to start seeing a positive change. Once the
movement of the animals starts from up in the mountains and down into the
riparian areas it will be immense,” Petersen says.
In Australia’s Cape Kimberley, environmental charity Climate Force is
collaborating with the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people and rangers to create a
corridor that runs between two UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Daintree
Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. To do this, they will need to plant
360,000 trees.
Wildlife habitats in this region have become fragmented. The area where this
new forest will be planted is a 213-hectare (526-acre) plot of land that was
cleared for cattle in the 1960s and then used as a commercial banana farm until
the 1990s. It was choked with invasive Guinea grass and covered in abandoned
farm machinery.
“For a good while now our Country [Indigenous land] has been bare,” Petersen
told
Mongabay.
The fragmentation of forests leads to a loss of diversity and decline in
species. But strips of land that make up wildlife corridors can help connect
wildlife populations. They ensure foraging for food, connecting different
populations for mating and other migratory need, say conservationists. In
December 2022, the U.N. biodiversity framework recognized ecological corridors
as an important conservation measure alongside protected areas.
For the Daintree Rainforest, conservationists say a wildlife corridor will help
protect endemic Bennett’s tree kangaroos (
Dendrolagus bennettianus),
spectacled flying foxes (
Pteropus conspicillatus) and southern cassowaries
(
Casuarius casuarius), the closest living species to dinosaurs.
Conservationist Barney Swan, founder of Climate Force, raised $2.5 million to
buy the abandoned farmland in 2021 and launch the Tropical ReGen project. Funds
were also used to develop a digital twin of the forest, to support the
reforestation project.
“A lot of the wildlife use this [wildlife corridor] as a highway and they
haven’t been able to get through because of the grass and the fences,” Swan
says. “If we get it right, it can support hundreds of thousands of acres of
land [in the Daintree Rainforest] because it’s so significant.”"
Via
Fix the News:
<
https://fixthenews.com/good-news-water-sanitation-hygiene-poverty-cambodia-barn-owls-uk/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
