Rainforest Research Project #4
Vital Science for Big Scrub Landcarers
Right around Australia, enthusiastic people pour their hearts and souls into improving the natural environment. The landcare movement has grown so rapidly in recent years that today, thousands of community groups and landholders take up this inspiring work.
 Base Of Minyon Falls Northern NSW |
The challenge - if we are to meet the rainforests' needs - is for the 'science' to catch up. Rainforest regenerators urgently need this science to guide their activities - it would affect everything they do - from where and which plants to source for revegetation to how best to 'assist' the forest's natural processes to ways of telling if the rainforest's health is in fact improving. The downside of federal government funds having been focussed on physical outcomes for the natural environment is that now, science has A LOT of catching up to do. These community groups want to get it right. We need to get started!
In this pioneering research, Robert Kooyman and interested collaborators plan to start by tackling the ecology of the Big Scrub Rainforest - an area of subtropical rainforest that was once the size of metropolitan Sydney but with less than half a percent remaining today. Their goal is to explore restoration science from the rainforests' perspective by examining things like functional groups, local provenance, genetic issues and ecological processes. Their hope is to maximise the effectiveness of rainforest restoration whilst minimising the loss of local adaptations. Many people are surprised to hear that that is exactly what is happening in the absence this urgently-needed research - the local 'uniqueness' of species and plant communities is, in many areas, being unintentionally lost forever.
Given that governments may continue to preferentially fund the popular hands-on planting and repair work by community groups for some time, this innovative project needs the support of ethical businesses or philanthropists who can think 'right outside the square', for the good of future rainforests and rainforest carers.
More Information
- Rainforest Research #1 - The Private Life of the Peach Myrtle
- Rainforest Research #2 - Walking with Rainforests
- Rainforest Research #3 - Discovery of the Nightcap Oak
- Rainforest Research #5 - Genetic Footprints of Rainforest Trees
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