Victoria’s grasslands are disappearing, volunteers are needed to halt the extinction

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The spring weather has finally arrived and native flowers in Victoria’s west are in full bloom. Among the foliage lie some of the country’s most endangered plants, which are being rescued by an ambition grassland and restoration project.

Transcript

00:00The tiny Derinalum billybutton is so rare, only one population has been found surviving

00:08in the wild.

00:09But thanks to careful work underway in Western Victoria, it's being rescued from the brink

00:14of extinction.

00:15Across the volcanic plains we've probably got less than 1% of native grasslands that

00:20still remain.

00:21The billybutton is one of 17 plants being saved.

00:25Sheep farmer and land care volunteer David Franklin spent decades figuring out how to

00:29make these grassland plants grow.

00:31It just becomes a bit of a challenge actually to try and overcome the secrets that they

00:38all seem to hold.

00:40Some of these endangered plants will be used to produce more seed, others will be reintroduced

00:45to reserves and private farmland.

00:47They've been reduced down to such a small area in Victoria since White Settlement that

00:53you just look at them and say, oh, how can we try and keep what we've got left?

00:59Victoria's best remaining grasslands exist on nondescript roadsides like this.

01:04And it's believed that CFA planned burns have unintentionally played a big part in their

01:09survival by mimicking how Aboriginal land managers had maintained the grasslands for

01:15thousands of years.

01:16It's been the optimal sort of management to maintain really highly diverse native grassland

01:21on the roadsides.

01:23But locals say these burns are becoming less frequent.

01:26We haven't managed to get burning done as frequently in the last 10 years.

01:32There's just fewer families, fewer people and a lot of jobs fall to a few.

01:38Finding the next generation of volunteers is a problem the land care group faces too.

01:42I suppose one of the things we struggle with is finding new members who are younger.

01:48Looking for help to continue saving some of Victoria's most precious flowers.

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