It's getting hotter and drier, but West Vic revegetation projects are working smarter

The eucalyptus trees being planted across Western Victoria might look the same as they always have, but the seeds they're grown from are being collected further and further north as ecologists try to adapt the region to the reality of a hotter and harsher future. 

Movement behind the plants: Local organisations like Fifteen Trees and Nardoo Hills in north-west Victoria, owned by Bush Heritage Australia, are leading restoration efforts to rejuvenate grasslands and temperate woodlands.

Getting local: Fifteen Trees is based in Bakery Hill and partners with local businesses to sponsor tree-planting in vulnerable landscapes. Nardoo Hills is dedicated to the revegetation of temperate woodlands to support a diverse - and threatened - collection of Australian bird species. 

🌿 Revegetation: Revegetation is the practice of re-establishing native plants, shrubs and trees on land that has been cleared, damaged or otherwise disturbed. By restoring these landscapes with native plants, it creates important habitat and food sources for native wildlife, as well as a more robust ecosystem. 

🌱 Seeds of change: Recent climate modelling from the state government indicates Victoria will get drier and hotter, with increased drought. 

• Research like this is changing how local revegetation projects are delivered, with ecologists selecting plants with increased climate-resilience. 

Give me an example: Nardoo Hills is a nature reserve owned by Bush Heritage Australia home to a range of native eucalyptus trees, such as Grey Box and Yellow Gum. 

Healthy Landscape Manager Dr Daniel Nugent has managed Nardoo Hills for four years and told the Brolga there has been “really serious dieback” of eucalyptus in the region because of the impact of climate change. Dr Nugent said these changes mean a careful selection of seeds and plants are used, to ensure what is planted can sustain a heating environment. 

• “The really giant eucalyptus, once they die, the woody debris on the ground is rich in carbon. The potential for carbon sequestration is really big. It’s another reason to restore and protect.” Dr Nugent told the Brolga. “We saw some really serious dieback on our eucalyptus, due to the impact of climate change.” 

What’s that? Carbon sequestration is the capture and storage of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. 

The hotter weather and drier climate has meant organisations such as Nardoo Hills have focused on using soil and plants that are able to handle the high-stress brought on during heatwaves and extended periods without rain.

🗺️Throughout the region: Drier weather has led to a decline in a worrying amount of woodland birds, including the likes of Red Wattlebirds and Spotted Pardalotes, which until recently were considered common. Woodland bird populations are declining throughout all of south-eastern Australia. 

• “We are converting [the land] back to [a] pre-European state, bringing back the trees and shrubs and important habitat and restoring the ecosystem; bringing back the invertebrate and fungi,” Dr Nugent said.

🗣️: “We recently spotted Swift Parrots on the property, a critically endangered bird.” 

🌳 Locals know best: Fifteen Trees founder Colleen Filippa and her team liaise with community groups to source local revegetation sites and nurseries. 

Filippa has a background in environmental science, and Fifteen Trees was established to deliver funds and sponsorship to groups across the country seeking to repair the landscape they live in. 

• “They’re [local community groups] very aware of their backyard and know how to take care of it.”

• “We do a lot of planting in the Grampians, and Ararat, Warrnambool and the Otways,” Filippa said. Nationally, the organisation has planted 500,000 trees and almost a quarter of this has been in Victoria.  

🗣️:“What nurseries are doing now is they’re putting the same species in, but collecting seeds from further north for things like Eucalyptus and Banksia, because it’s the same species but they’re slightly more attuned to a drier climate.”

Why West Vic? Applied ecologist and conservation biologist, Rohan Clarke, believes the region has an abundance of “remnant revegetation" – leftover habitat that has persevered despite land clearing – as well as strong grasslands and a history of restoration on farms that goes back decades.

The Monash University professor has co-authored several studies on revegetation and said once a farm achieves 15-20 percent natural vegetation cover there is a substantial gain for biodiversity. He cited Jigsaw Farms, a property located north of Hamilton that integrates revegetation and livestock grazing as an example of productive farming that coexists with conservation. 

🗣️: “It’s delivering a very productive farm that has also substantially boosted the opportunity for birds and mallard and frogs and butterflies. We can show that empirically,” Professor Clarke said.

“Biodiversity and ecosystems are needed to function. Things like pollination, like the carbon cycle, clean air, the water cycle, it’s all intrinsically linked to biodiversity. Without them the Earth won’t function and neither will humans.”

Header Image: Fifteen Trees