Hollow homes
Monitoring our reserves in north-west Victoria, Dja Dja Wurrung Country, helps future homes for hollow-dependent fauna.
Named after the Dja Dja Wurrung word for Malleefowl, Lawan is wedged between two isolated blocks of the Wychitella Nature Conservation Reserve, managed by Parks Victoria, and links these to create a habitat corridor.
Both Parks Victoria blocks have unique species on them that are isolated. On one block this includes a very, very small population of Malleefowl. It's also the most southern population in Victoria.
Once common from Geelong to Bendigo and into the mallee further north (where it still occurs) Malleefowl are only just hanging on in Central Victoria, in this last refuge of suitable habitat.
By re-vegetating 70 hectares of Lawan Reserve, we're helping create a bush corridor across the northern end of the Wychitella Nature Conservation Reserve.
These protected areas are in our Kara Kara-Wedderburn Priority Landscape – the area between the regional town of Wedderburn and the Kara Kara National Park that we've been connecting up for more than two decades.
Woodlands on the inland slopes of the Great Dividing Range are one of the landscapes under-represented in the National Reserve System that we aim to support in this region. Overall in Australia only about 18% of the inland slopes woodlands remain.
Image Information
Brown Treecreeper. Photo Ian Mayo.
Image Information
Sticky Everlasting Xerochrysum viscosum. Photo Rowan Mott.
Lawan Reserve protects important Grey Box and Yellow Gum grassy woodlands. Temperate woodlands are the most threatened wooded ecosystem in Australia, primarily due to land clearing.
The location provides suitable habitat for Quandongs (Santalum acuminatum), which have been reintroduced, with limited success due to weather conditions and the nature of the species. Efforts to increase Quandong numbers at Lawan are continuing. The reserve is also suitable habitat for declining species of woodland birds, and its unploughed soils, similar to Nardoo Hills, may support orchid populations.
What Lawan protects
Victoria's declining woodland birds, such as Brown Treecreeper, Hooded Robin, Black-chinned Honeyeater, Brown-headed Honeyeater and Painted Buttonquail.
Vegetation communities include Sandstone Ridge Shrubland, which is home to Broombush (Melaleuca unicinata) and Blue Leaved Mallee (Eucalyptus polybractea) (endangered in Vic), as well as Metamorphic Slopes Shrubby Woodland (depleted).
The reserve also contains plants that have declined in the region, such as Quandong (Santalum acuminatum), Common Eutaxia (Eutaxia microphylla), Weeping Pittosporum (Pittosporum angustifolium), Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata) and native grass cover.
What we're doing
Established in 2020, Lawan Reserve was extended by 346 hectares in 2021. The new property was named Ngumlambarra Reserve and extended connectivity, enabling isolated populations of threatened bird, mammal and reptile species to move more freely across the landscape. The reserves are now treated as one, under the banner of Lawan Reserve.
Some of the property was historically cleared but the previous landowner, Cassinia Environmental, working with its partners and Greenfleet had begun steps towards ecological restoration including extensive revegetation work with 25,000 seedlings and 400 km of direct seeding lines.
We're working closely with our neighbours in the area on landscape-scale weed, fire management and species monitoring. These include Parks Victoria, the Wedderburn Conservation Management Network, North-Central Catchment Management Authority, Trust for Nature and volunteers such as the Victorian Malleefowl Recovery Group.
Of course, Djaara, the Traditional Custodians, have also been involved from the beginning.
