Some of Victoria’s most spectacular grasslands exist on nondescript roadsides in the heart of the state’s western sheep country.
Known as the Volcanic Plains grasslands, this endangered ecosystem once stretched from Melbourne to South Australia.
Senior biodiversity officer at the Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority (CMA), Ben Zeeman, says less than one per cent of these native grasslands remain today, clinging to the country roadsides and small patches of private farmland.
It’s believed much of what’s left has been accidentally saved by the Country Fire Authority (CFA).
Grasslands on a roadside near Chatsworth in southwest Victoria. (ABC News: Rhiannon Stevens)
Some wide roadsides, originally set aside to move stock, are burnt most years by the CFA as a bushfire prevention method, Dr Zeeman says.
“[Burning] has been the optimal sort of management to maintain really highly diverse native grasslands on the roadsides,” he says.
Dr Zeeman says regular cool burns keep Kangaroo grass, the dominant species on the grasslands, low and contained giving the other smaller plants space to establish themselves.
The Volcanic Plains grasslands once stretched from Melbourne to South Australia. (ABC News: Rhiannon Stevens)
The CFA has unintentionally mimicked the burns that Aboriginal land managers practised over thousands of years, Dr Zeeman says.
Despite this happy accident, many of the plants in these western Victorian grasslands are facing extinction.
The Glenelg Hopkins CMA is working with traditional owners, Landcare groups and private landowners to protect and restore what’s left.
Ben Zeeman inspecting some of the endangered plants growing in Chatsworth. (ABC News: Rhiannon Stevens)
‘Gets in your blood’
The tiny Derrinallum Billy Button is so rare that only one population has been found surviving in the wild.
The billy button is one of 17 endangered plants the Glenelg Hopkins CMA is working to save.
By producing seeds and attempting to reintroduce these plants to roadside reserves and private farmland, they hope to restore grassland diversity and increase the populations of these threatened plants.
Ben Zeeman collects seed from an endangered plant. (ABC News: Rhiannon Stevens)
Dr Zeeman says the project is challenging because these grassland plants don’t have a persistent seed bank in the soil like many other Australian ecosystems.
“[We’re] looking at bringing these plants back to these sites by planting seedlings and trying some direct seeding experiments,” he says.
Locating these plants in the wild and then collecting their seed is a painstaking endeavour.
Establishing a seed production system for these native plants is another challenge altogether.
In a nursery on his farm at Chatsworth, David Franklin is working in partnership with the Glenelg Hopkins CMA to produce large numbers of these plants for seed production.
David Franklin at his nursery on his Chatsworth farm. (ABC News: Rhiannon Stevens)
Mr Franklin has spent decades figuring out how to make these grassland plants grow.
“It becomes a bit of a challenge actually to try and overcome the secrets that they all seem to hold,” he says.
Born into a local sheep farming family, Mr Franklin says the grasslands have a way of entering the bloodstream.
“You just get passionate about the grasslands, they’ve been reduced down to such a small area in Victoria since white settlement,” he says.
“You just look at them and say, ‘How can we increase or improve and try and keep what we’ve got left?'”
Jobs fall to a few
Mr Franklin has grown grassland plants for the local Woorndoo Chatsworth Landcare group.
But working with such rare and engaged plants can be nerve-wracking.
Mr Franklin worries about a storm or a rogue possum undoing the slow progress.
Another worry, Mr Franklin says, is finding enough people as passionate as him to continue restoring the grasslands in the future.
Even the annual CFA burns can’t be depended on.
Local farmer and president of the Woorndoo Chatsworth Landcare group Susan Bosch says the CFA burns are becoming less frequent.
“There’s just fewer families, fewer people, and a lot of jobs fall to a few,” Ms Bosch says.
Finding the next generation of volunteers is a problem the Landcare group faces too.
Susan Bosch says the Woorndoo Chatsworth Landcare group has been working to restore grasslands for years. (ABC News: Rhiannon Stevens)
“One of the things we struggle with is finding new members who are younger,” Ms Bosch says.
But for the Landcare members involved in restoring roadside grasslands, the work brings unexpected joy, Ms Bosch says.
“It does make you feel a bit more positive about the state of things when you know you can’t have such a huge impact on what’s happening more globally or across Australia,” she says.
“You know that you can have a little bit of an impact on your patch.”