Australia: Private hands shape the future for species

Tom Arup The Age 15 Oct 11;

It's been three years since Peter and Emma Ashton packed up their lives and headed to the outback to work on the frontline of conservation.

The Ashtons manage the 63,000-hectare Boolcoomatta Reserve in South Australia for owners Bush Heritage. They are helping to rid the former sheep station of feral species such as foxes and rabbits, removing old fencing and maintaining the historic buildings, some built in the 1870s.

With the property located 100 kilometres west of Broken Hill, their two young children are home-schooled most of the week. Recently, they have been caring for a young red kangaroo, ''Priscilla'', who they found struggling without a mother on the property.

Peter Ashton, a ranger for Parks Victoria for 13 years, says they were looking for a challenge and a unique experience, and had a window to seek it before the kids got too old.

''When we first got out here, we sort of thought, 'What are we doing?' But now, its pretty natural,'' he says, driving through the expansive arid scrubland environment.

Tomorrow the Ashtons and Boolcoomatta will host Bush Heritage's 20th birthday party. Heritage's aim is to raise money through donations, buy properties and manage them as private environmental reserves.

For the anniversary, Heritage science and monitoring manager Dr Jim Radford has prepared a report on the environmental gains made across the group's properties, including increased protection for 73 threatened animal and 92 threatened plant species.

The report also outlines major gains made at Boolcoomatta - where The Saturday Age travelled this week with help from Bush Heritage - after Heritage bought the property in 2006. Cleared of sheep grazing after 150 years, scrubland bird numbers are rebounding, including white-winged fairy-wrens (up 235 per cent), rufous field wrens (up 395 per cent) and redthroats (up 655 per cent). In March, Peter Ashton was the first person to see a yellow-footed rock wallaby on the property since 1924.

Heritage had modest beginnings. In 1990, Greens leader Bob Brown used $49,000 he won with the Goldman environmental award on a down payment for a property slated for woodchipping in the Liffey Valley in Tasmania. Heritage was formed a year later around the resulting campaign to find the other $200,000 to buy the property outright.

Ten years later, Heritage remained a small operation - led by chief executive Doug Humann, who joined in 1997 - whose yearly turnover was well under $500,000 and just 3000 hectares in reserves.

On a cold winter evening in 1999, Humann flew from Hobart to Melbourne to meet a woman who was thinking of helping Heritage. Humann met her at a cafe on Smith Street and she told him she was going to write a cheque but wanted the gift to remain anonymous. The cheque was made out for $1.3 million.

Heritage used some of the donation to buy the 60,000-hectare Carnarvon Station in central Queensland in 2001, with the help of a Commonwealth grant. Humann says Carnarvon brought Heritage prominence to attract other donors and buy more properties.

Since then Heritage has expanded dramatically and owns almost a million hectares over 33 reserves. It is now aiming to protect 1 per cent of Australia by 2025.

The growing number of private conservation reserves held by a number of groups such as Heritage and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy have now become a significant plank in efforts to halt Australia's disturbing decline in biodiversity and high species extinctions. From a low base a decade ago, private reserves -such as those owned by Heritage - have grown to 3 per cent of the reserve system. New opportunities are also opening up via the ability to generate carbon credits through the land management.

Heritage's 20th year will also be Humann's last at the helm. After 14 years, he says it is time for a personal change.

Back at Boolcoomatta, Emma Ashton says the family will think about leaving in a year or two.

''There are no weekends out here'' she says, ''that's what I'll miss … the days just kind of roll into each other.''

Peter Ashton agrees.

''I'll miss the freedom of it all,'' he says.