The iconic Carnaby’s black cockatoo habituating an area of Kwongan bushland.FARMERS in the West Midlands region have put in a huge effort to protect native vegetation areas on their farms, including protecting habitat where the endangered Carnaby’s black cockatoo is found.
In particular, James and Rebecca Raffan, whose property lies mainly in the Shire of Coorow, have just completed the erection of 19kms of fencing to protect a total of 613 hectares of priority bushland.
With government funding the Raffans have successfully fenced native bushland.
There is now evidence of a nesting pair of Carnaby’s black cockatoos in the area.
The West Midlands region has exceptional species richness, particularly in and near the Mt Lesueur National Park and areas surrounding Eneabba.
Much of the vegetation is low heath or scrub heath on lateritic soil or sand plain such as banksias, dryandra, hakea, grevillea (collectively known as kwongan) and is an important food source for the endangered cockatoo.
Funding provided farmers with cash incentives and technical assistance to fence and manage valuable areas of native bushland.
West Midland Group is a not-for-profit farmer -riven organisation and, through its natural resource management program, officers work with farmers to protect natural assets on privately owned land.
Farmers receive a range of services from the program including a summary of the type of plants growing on their farm from a professional botanist, a contribution towards the cost of fencing material and technical advice on how to manage the remnant into the future.
By protecting remnant vegetation steps can be taken to reduce the decline of Carnaby’s black cockatoo numbers.