The Great Ningaloo Reef
On the most western point of Australia’s mainland lies two significant listed World Heritage Areas (WHAs). The Ningaloo Coast WHA, Australia’s largest fringing coral reef system over 260 km long, and beside it, Shark Bay WHA, containing internationally significant expanses of sea grass beds, encompassing over 2.8 million hectares. These are important primary production and breeding grounds for the abundance of wildlife including turtle nesting rookeries, grazing dugongs and near shore visitations of annual migrating whale sharks and humpback whales.
The focus of Rangelands NRM current World Heritage Program as part of the National Landcare Program (NLP) includes a surrounding buffer area of the Wooramel, Gascoyne, Lyndon-Minilya, Ashburton, Onslow Coast and Fortescue River catchment basins that stretch hundreds of kilometers inland. The incredible values and whole of system approach to the ‘Great Ningaloo Reef’ is not too dissimilar to efforts addressing the threats to the Great Barrier Reef.
Rangelands NRM Region with the Ningaloo and Shark Bay World Heritage Areas and River Catchments
Our Partners
Those who live there and care for country, and who we partner with include: Gascoyne Catchment Group, Biosecurity groups (Carnarvon RBA and Pilbara Mesquite Management Committee); Land Conservation District Councils (LCDC), Aboriginal Corporations and traditional knowledge holders; pastoralist, horticulture and producer groups; Conservation and landcare groups (Bush Heritage Australia). We also help to coordinate the efforts of federal, state and local governments and agencies; scientists, researchers, landscape ecologists/consultants, educational institutions and students. The environmental protection and ecological health of these WHAs are at the forefront of conversations and common ground for a community of practice.
Ningaloo Coast adjacent to Warroora Station
Catchment scale resilience
Extreme high temperatures, drought and intense rainfall events are becoming more prominent. This can result in increasing runoff washing valuable topsoil downstream and into the sea. High turbidity can threaten marine species habitats, stromatolites and sea grass meadows that form the key values within the two World Heritage Areas.
Rangelands NRM key focus is minimising threats to the Shark Bay and Ningaloo Coast World Heritage land and sea assets through supporting a diverse community of practice. This involves developing and resourcing partnerships and projects with local managers and communities, that implement locally designed holistic on-ground works, increase knowledge transfer and skills, and supporting events and activities.
Vast catchment areas inland from the WHAs with ephemeral creeks targeted for ecological restoration.
Ecological management planning
Focused effort is on works that improve landscape rehydration, erosion control and grazing management in catchments that impact the WHAs. Rangelands NRM partnered with pastoralists and landscape ecologists on individual properties to improve their understanding of holistic ecological processes and catchment management at a property level.
Recommendations for ecological restoration were identified via face-to-face discussions and on-ground assessments. Resulting plans accounted for vast station property sizes, that often included several large sub-catchments and different vegetation types and water regimes. These management plans identified landscape function issues and targets, which ultimately guided the development of goals to improve pastoral and catchment management.
Landscape ecologists assisted pastoralists to conduct property assessments and management plans.
Building collective efforts in managing invasives
A major threat to Shark Bay and Ningaloo Coast WHAs is the presence of hard to manage populations of large invasive species, including feral herbivores and invasive weeds. In the program, Rangelands NRM partnered with local groups, Carnarvon Regional Biosecurity Association, Gascoyne Catchments Group, Pilbara Mesquite Management Committee and Lyndon LCDC. These groups helped control the spread and minimise the impact of invasive species on vegetation cover, habitat health, riparian areas and the predation of native marine species (e.g. turtle hatchlings). This required innovative logistical planning and both on-ground and aerial support to cover thousands of hectares of World Heritage Area catchments.
Camels pose significant threats to WHA habitats.
Traditional Custodian Ranger Program
A key success of the WHAs Program over the years is the participation of First Nations Land and Sea Custodians in developing healthy country planning and undertaking restoration works. This has included cultural awareness and training, sharing traditional and cultural knowledge, dance and presentations both with Indigenous students and ranger teams and at wider public events. There was also language and writing workshops for rangers on country and a cultural awareness/storytelling/site tour.
Collaboration between Rangelands NRM, Bush Heritage Australia and First Nations Rangers has involved working on country at Hamelin Station to assess sites of concern and do on-ground works to halt active erosion and prevent mobilized sediment from moving downstream (erosion matting and sieve rolls laid in active gully areas and sand plumes to block movement) to protect ancient stromatolites and seagrass beds at Hamelin Pool.
First Nations Rangers assisted soft coastal land restoration at Hamelin Station.
The Glue and Coordination
As with all of Rangelands NRM programs, significant challenges were associated with the delivery of the projects due to the diverse and remote environments, often extreme conditions (high temperatures, flooding, drought), narrow seasonal opportunities for the completion of on-ground works, travel of large distances and barriers to communications in remote areas.
Nonetheless, Rangelands NRM have built strong and valuable relationships with locally based land and sea managers in the years prior to and throughout the program, to assist, support and inspire an active network of partners who understand and are committed to long-term conservation efforts on-ground at large scale, at Shark Bay and Ningaloo Coast WHAs and surrounding catchments.
This program has largely focused on building a diverse ‘community of practice’ that supports land/sea managers along a journey towards improving the resilience of communities, natural environments and resources within the World Heritage Areas. This community of practice promotes:
- Working together towards holistic and positive outcomes;
- A continual work of progress that involves constant refining and improvements, learning from ‘good’ mistakes;
- Adaptive and adoptive to different circumstances/regions or changing conditions and standards;
- Proactive rather than reactive;
- Anticipates, has empathy for, and works through barriers, along a collaborative partnership ‘journey’;
- Values the importance of storytelling, awareness and knowledge for project delivery, completion and learning; and
- Loyal and reliable (e.g.to the WHAs, NRM and the community of practice).
This has significant benefits, including:
- Providing increased funding, capacity and confidence for groups and individuals to function to protect World Heritage Area values;
- Exploration of and provision of annual works in new and follow-up treatment of threat areas;
Larger quality and scale of works on ground to achieve significant and wide-reaching results in the WHAs and surrounding catchments despite challenging remote conditions; and
- Inspiring and providing opportunity, and improved capacity for land/sea mangers to continue to protect the WHAs over the long-term (past the duration of the current program).
Lessons Learnt
The WHA Program is conducted in challenging environments which are diverse and remote however, significant outcomes have been achieved beyond expectation. Rangelands NRM has built strong and positive relationships with locally based land/sea managers and assisted in supporting and inspiring an active network of land/sea managers who understand and are committed to long-term conservation efforts on the ground at a large scale.
A key lesson is the importance of valuing, developing, and connecting strong, trusting partnerships with the region's diverse land and sea managers. Rangelands NRM remains committed to delivering this program and has learnt that the vast and remote nature of the region demands significant resourcing of time for travel and on-ground meetings.
Loggerhead Turtle at Gnaraloo Bay, Ningaloo Coast.
This project was supported by Rangelands NRM through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.