What is it?

Reconnect with the Bush is a landscape-scale connectivity program within Birds Australia that will act as a central unifying theme around which many of our conservation activities will be based.

The theme of landscape-scale connectivity is important for Birds Australia as it is highly relevant to the conservation needs of many of Australia's birds especially in the face of climate change. It is underpinned by science and draws on our core strength of bird monitoring by volunteers.

Why do it?

Drought, Land Clearing, Fragmentation, Urban Expansion, Fire, Water Diversion, and Overgrazing - these major impacts are forcing many of our birds towards extinction.

The survival of bird populations depends on the retention of enough native forests, woodlands, shrublands, grasslands and wetlands to provide supportive, connected habitats at a landscape scale. To achieve this we must retain and maintain intact native vegetation, repair degraded habitats, replace habitat that has been removed, and reconnect natural habitats to recreate a functional landscape - Retain, Repair, Replace, Reconnect. We urgently need to Reconnect the Bush.

Disengagement with Nature is arguably the most serious threat to our environment. What we don't know about, we don't care about. We urgently need to Reconnect with the Bush.

Learn about it

Birds Australia holds several events each year. This year's Conservation Forum in Brisbane focused entirely on the Reconnect with the Bush theme. If you would like to read the abstract and some of the presentations, visit the web page. Towards the end of the year is the Australasian Ornithological Conference in Armidale, a joint event with Birds Australia and the Ornithological Society of New Zealand. There will be several sessions this year that will inform on various aspects of Connectivity, and the importance of engaging the community in conservation.

Many of BA's existing projects readily link with the theme of landscape-scale connectivity.

Atlas - our main project to support the monitoring and evaluation of conservation efforts to restore connectivity
Birds In Backyards - seeks to reconnect the community to the natural environment.
Carnaby's Black-Cockatoo Recovery Project - investigating the threat of loss of connectivity in agricultural areas and the Swan coastal plain.
Gluepot Reserve Black-eared Miner - this project maintains suitable habitat on the Reserve and works with to maintain viable populations in other isolated pockets of nearby habitat.
Cowra Woodland Birds Program - a medium-scale habitat restoration project.
Important Bird Areas - identifies many of the sites where the maintenance or improvement of Connectivity is needed.
Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo - an extension project with a strong conceptual link to connectivity.
Shorebirds 2020 - looks at the degree to which key non-breeding sites in Australia are independent or interconnected.
Threatened Bird Network - focuses on a number of target species and existing projects seeking to restore function, and mobilises thousands of volunteers to this effort.
Woodland Birds for Biodiversity - focuses on the conservation of threatened and declining woodland birds in the temperate region of south-eastern Australia through restoration & revegetation initiatives, monitoring its effectiveness, and raising community awareness.

One of the threatened woodland birds we are trying to help is the Tasmanian endemic Forty-spotted Pardalote. This tiny bird is inextricably linked with White (Manna) Gum - a woodland type that has been cleared over large parts of the southern island State. Numbers of the leaf-gleaning Forty-spot have dramatically declined over the past couple of decades without any obvious cause. It is likely that the species is suffering from habitat clearance that occurred long ago. Populations of this resident species have become increasingly isolated and without action one of Australia's smallest and most endearing little birds could well find itself staring in the face of extinction.

Support It

You can help us to Reconnect the Bush by making a donation to the Australian Bird Fund.