view of a brush forest
Great Western Woodlands Sunrise light on Eucalypt (gum) forest near the mining town of Norseman, in the Great Western Woodlands of Western Australia. © Mark Godfrey

Land and freshwater stories

Gondwana Link

Our past work to help protect the largest temperate woodland on Earth

South-western Australia is one of the world’s top 35 biodiversity hotspots and the only one of its kind in Australia. It’s home to more than a quarter of Australia’s known flowering plants, including rare eucalypts, stunning orchids and beautiful banksias. While the region supports industries like agriculture and forestry, it also retains vast areas of undisturbed habitat essential for the tourism industry.

In 2002, as our first project in Australia, we helped develop a plan to bring together Australia’s leading conservation organisations with interested local groups to protect, restore and link together wild places in the region.

The Gondwana Link project was the result of this work, stretching a thousand kilometres from the cool, wet tall forests of Margaret River on the west coast, to the semi-arid woodlands and mallee country bordering the Nullarbor Plain in the east.

Perhaps most significantly Gondwana Link includes the world’s largest temperate woodland – the Great Western Woodlands, providing habitat for 182 species of birds alone.