19 September 2007
Two successful applications for grant funding will boost the Mornington Peninsula and Western Port Biosphere Reserve Foundation's collaborative efforts to save the Southern Brown Bandicoot in the Port Phillip and Western Port region.
The grants are funded under Round 10 of the WWF Threatened Species Network Community Grants Program.
The Mornington Peninsula and Western Port Biosphere Reserve Foundation has been awarded $15,000 to secure bandicoot populations around Western Port.
The biosphere reserve foundation's project aims to expand existing bandicoot populations in the region by establishing management strategies to ensure continuity of effort, reducing fox predation, and extending habitat with understorey plantings. Under scientific supervision, local volunteers will monitor the distribution and abundance of bandicoots. Community awareness programs will be an integral part of the project, engaging the northern Western Port community, from Cranbourne to Bayles.
Project partners include Melbourne Water, Cardinia Shire Council, Western Port Swamp Land Care, Bayles Regional Primary School, City of Casey, and private landholders, L&T English, L Bonney, C&S Manning and G&J Dunkley.
The Cardinia Environment Coalition (CEC) has also been awarded $10,000 to protect the Southern Brown Bandicoot at Bayles in the Western Port hinterland.
The CEC's project aims to protect and enhance Bandicoot Corner, a core area of bandicoot habitat managed by the CEC. Activities will include habitat restoration; predator control, including a fox-baiting program; and community engagement through the development of educational and interpretive facilities and field days for the community.
Both projects will complement an existing biosphere reserve foundation project, funded under Envirofund Round 8, to improve bandicoot habitat at The Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve at Frankston. The Pines population is the only definitively-known Southern Brown Bandicoot population remaining on the Mornington Peninsula.
The projects form part of a broader recovery plan for the Southern Brown Bandicoot across the biosphere reserve, which complements recovery efforts in New South Wales and South Australia (see below).
The Southern Brown Bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus obesulus) is listed as an endangered species nationally and a threatened species in three mainland states.
Until the 1970s, the species was common in the heathy woodlands that occurred in the Melbourne and Western Port region, including the Seaford-Frankston and Cranbourne-Langwarrin areas, and parts of the Koo Wee Rup, Cardinia and Bass Coast regions.
Today, the species is now restricted to only one relatively secure site, the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne. Here, strategic management of a 250-hectare patch of remnant vegetation provides suitable habitat for the species. However, even this population is still relatively small, with limited genetic diversity, and potentially vulnerable to fire and disease.
Elsewhere, only isolated patches of habitat remain, with none or just a few surviving bandicoots. The conservation of these fragmented populations, on land managed by many private landholders and public agencies, poses a significant challenge.
The biosphere reserve foundation adopted the recovery of the Southern Brown Bandicoot as a flagship project in order to raise community awareness of declining biodiversity and the need to live more sustainably.
In collaboration with other organisations, the foundation's research committee has established a Southern Brown Bandicoot recovery team.
A recovery plan has been developed specifically for the Mornington Peninsula and Western Port region, based on national and state recovery plans. It identifies the need for work in three major areas:
The foundation held a public meeting in November 2006 to consider how best to implement a conservation program. A report on the proceedings will be available soon.
© Mornington Peninsula & Western Port Biosphere Reserve Foundation Ltd 2012