The Grassy Plains Network has called on the state government to prioritise public acquisition of land for the Western Grassland Reserve between Little River and Melton.
The network (GPN), a subcommittee of the Indigenous Flora & Fauna Association Inc, includes representatives of community and neighbourhood conservation groups in Melbourne’s west; ecology academics and researchers; and professionals working in private and council organisations.
The GPN issued its call to the state government last month, following a Victorian Auditor-General’s report which found the government has fallen about 90 per cent short of a commitment to acquire 15,000 hectares of grassland between Little River and Melton by this year.
The government has committed to establishing a Western Grassland Reserve outside the Urban Growth Boundary, to connect the reserves of the You Yangs across the Victorian Volcanic Plains to the Werribee River, but the Auditor-General’s report found that the state government has only acquired 10 per cent of the land needed for the reserve, which was promised as an offset for the development of new suburbs.
A statement from the GPN said the Western Grassland Reserve and other valuable grassland remnants in Melbourne’s west “are deteriorating due to lack of management of weed invasion, overgrazing and other processes”.
GPN’s convenor Ben Courtice said: “This is one of Australia’s most endangered ecosystems, and its future is not looking good right now.”
The GPN has outlined a series of priority steps that the state government could take to turn the situation around, including acquiring the grassland areas which were promised protection by 2020.
“Without intervention to turn this around, the chance to save and restore precious areas of this unique ecosystem may be lost”, Mr Courtice said.
The GPN said the state government should also honour a promise to remove a Public Acquisition Overlay from the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative’s grassland property Wurdi Youang, near Little River, and support their conservation management activities.
The GPN also wants the state government to “urgently acquire conservation areas in the Urban Growth Zone for public management for conservation, as most are still in developers’ hands, subject to weed invasion and other adverse impacts”.
The state government was contacted for comment.
