Environmental experts: 'It's time to do something'

The region’s flora and fauna are facing major challenges as our climate dries and rainfall hits record lows – but there are ways each of us can make a difference.

That was the message heard at Nature Conservation Margaret River Region’s latest Environmental Sundowner Series event. The evening featured expert speakers was the second of a two-part special called Facing the Big Dry.

General manager Drew McKenzie said the region had endured its driest and hottest 7-month period on record, with swathes of vegetation dying off and a heavy toll on wildlife.

Speakers included Murdoch University researcher Dr Joe Fontaine, who specialises in disturbance ecology and how fire or drought affect an ecosystem’s ability to recover.

“These extreme events are happening more often and that has consequences for how the ecosystems we know and love are going to be changing,” he said.

Dr Fontaine said vegetation had died off in areas with shallow granite soils as well as in coastal areas, potentially opening the door for weed species to move in. While dead or dying vegetation might seem like a fire risk, he said the total fuel load has not increased – leaf matter has just moved from the canopy to the ground and some of this would be starting to decay. He also noted many plants were showing signs of re-sprouting and that even completely dead plants still represented important habitat.

Scientist Dr Pauline Treble has been monitoring local caves for more than 20 years. Her research found groundwater replenishment from rainfall is at its “lowest level in the last 800 years”.

Meanwhile, Suzi Strapp – president of animal care group FAWNA – painted a confronting picture of working on the front line during what she called a “bloody awful summer”.

Suzi said many adult swans abandoned their young, with FAWNA volunteers rescuing almost 200 cygnets in the region. She said Western ringtail possums seeking shelter under solar panels were treated for burnt paws from hot tin roofs, with 73 possums treated last summer compared to 23 the season before.

She said people could help by providing clean water, planting waterwise gardens, keeping cats and dogs in at night, building ‘catios’, removing introduced weeds, sharing nature-positive social media, making a donation to local conservation, and volunteering.

Filmmaker Jane Hammond, whose current project

“Our government is still pushing gas and pushing fossil fuels, and we’re watching the forests collapse and we have to connect the dots,” she said. “We can do something but we need to act now and we need to tell out politicians, enough fossil fuels, it’s time to act on climate change and it’s time to do something.”