Funding hope for 'outback to ocean' plan
Wednesday, March 7, 2012 at 22:47 
The Red Tailed Black Cockatoo is on of the many endangered species in the region. Photo: Kate GeraghtyAN AMBITIOUS project to link habitats from the outback to the ocean along the South Australian-Victorian border is among those that could receive further funding under the biodiversity plan.
Called Habitat 141°, the project is named after the meridian along which it runs for 700 kilometres.
Trust for Nature project officer Ellie Clark said the corridor allowed conservation groups to get behind a big-picture project that was ambitious but achievable.
''It's about building on something that is already there,'' she said. ''We need to channel our energy and funding into an area that's got something already - a backbone.''
Ms Clark, who is participating in the corridor's development by reclaiming endangered buloke-tree woodlands from private land in the Wimmera region, said the only way to protect threatened species on farms was to buy the land.
''The reality is that it gets harder and harder to protect land,'' she said. ''The stuff we really need to protect is on productive land, so we need money to give to landowners. It's not going to happen any other way.''
The draft estimates that more than 50 per cent of the native vegetation in the Habitat 141° region has been cleared, particularly in areas such as the Wimmera, where there is intensive agriculture.
The region contains many nationally threatened animals, including the endangered red-tailed black cockatoo, which depends on the buloke woodlands.
''What the area could really do with is more co-ordination of some of our activities,'' Ms Clark said.
''Funding for this would allow us to co-ordinate our activities better and start up new projects.''