Grassland restoration: strengthening our underpinnings (2005)

Temperate lowland ‘grasslands’ and ‘grassy woodlands’ in Australia have been the subject of spirited study and restoration practice in Australia over the last 20 years. As a number of articles in this issue show, these ecosystems were the first in Australia to have been exploited for agricultural production and they have been the subject of prolonged restoration attention. Grassy ecosystems have been hit hard because of the ease with which they could be exploited for grazing by pastoralists. There are a number of regions in Australia that were originally rich in grasses and forbs suitable for pasture including: Victoria's grassy Basalt Plain (extending from Melbourne to the SA border); the Riverine Plains of northern Victoria and southern NSW; the midlands of Tasmania; south-eastern South Australia; the Monaro tablelands; Sydney's Cumberland Plain; the grassy woodlands of NSW Central West and Northern tablelands (once the most extensive and now the most reduced of our grassy ecosystems); and the Mitchell Grasslands of Queensland. In fact, grasses abound in most Australian ecosystems (except south-west Western Australia – further confirmation of the uniqueness of ecosystems in that part of the world). What has happened to these once-extensive grassland systems? Well, they have either been gobbled up by urban development or highly modified by a shift to exotic pastures; except (hence the many items in this issue of EMR on grassy restoration) in fragments or particular bioregions where socioeconomic or environmental conditions were unattractive to land modification. Restoration and conservation management of what is left of Australia's grassy systems started to emerge in the mid-1970s. Restoration philosophy and techniques were significantly influenced by prairie reconstruction models that were evolving in north America at the time, often described in that inspiring north American journal serving the Society for Ecological Restoration, Restoration & Management Notes (now named Ecological Restoration). Research trials fostered at Melbourne University (Burnley campus) and the Victorian University (St Albans), reinforced practices already underway at many of Victoria's more iconic sites – including Organ Pipes National Park (see McDougall & Morgan in this issue), Derrimutt Reserve, Mooramong, Yarra Bend and Merri Creek. These projects (as well as a range of studies including those reviewed in Cole & Lunt in this issue) subsequently informed and inspired much of the reconstruction work undertaken in the once-extensive but now endangered grassy woodlands of Sydney's Cumberland Plain (see abstracts this issue). For all its ingenuity, the reconstruction model, however, is only one of the two major streams of grassy ecosystem restoration work developing in Australia. A regeneration model that focuses more on broadacre grazing manipulations designed to reduce exotic species and enhance the resilience of native species has been increasingly emerging in rural areas, particularly on the NSW Northern tablelands (Lodge & Whalley 1985; 1989), and grassy box woodlands of the sheep-wheatbelts of Victoria and New South Wales (Davidson et al. and Prober & Theile this issue), southern Queensland (McIntyre and Tongway this issue) and Tasmania (Kirkpatrick et al. this issue). The debates between the ‘reconstructors’ and the ‘regenerators’ have gone on in grassland, just as they have in rainforest and dry forests. However, an intelligently applied combination of both approaches is needed in many sites where species are known to be missing. There is no doubt that there is likely to be a burgeoning of grassland restoration in Australia in the next few years, based on information derived from both models. Grassland restoration, however, still suffers from a lack of public support; and I believe this applies to a far greater degree to grasslands than it does to wetlands, rainforests or sclerophyll forests. Without detracting from the other systems, I believe it is true that grassland restoration would benefit from improved public appreciation in a manner similar to that which has occurred in north America for prairie species. Despite the great interest in ‘wildflowers’, few forbs and even fewer grasses are recognized as ‘wildflowers’ by most Australians. Rather than being interested in ground stratum species, otherwise intelligent Australians have an enormous resistance to learning about grasses and forbs; perhaps assuming they are beneath us in value simply because they are beneath us in location. This is a major problem because peri-urban lands are being alienated faster than any other type and there is no need for grassy systems to be destroyed in this process. With a little knowledge about management of species and soils, grassy ecosystems are abundantly compatible with human habitation, providing many services as low cost, sustainable assets. It is time there was a major education campaign to conserve and restore them.