The Wyss Foundation is Helping to Accelerate the Pace of Conservation in Australia
Mt. Gibson in Far North Queensland | Photo credit: South Endeavour Trust
Since 2018, when Hansjörg Wyss launched the Wyss Campaign for Nature, the Wyss Foundation has spent and committed $21.6 million USD to support organizations across Australia working to create parks and private protected areas. These efforts have already helped to protect almost 8.5 million acres of land throughout the nation – an area that is over half the size of the Australian state of Tasmania.
Why is the Wyss Foundation working in Australia?
Australia is one of just 17 megadiverse countries, which are home to 70% of the world’s plants and animals. If we’re going to stand a chance to address the crisis facing nature – and avoid the worst case scenario of a million species going extinct – we must double down on our efforts to safeguard lands, waters, and wildlife in parts of the world with the highest biological diversity.
Australia has made a commitment to do just that by joining the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, a group of more than 80 countries that have pledged support for the international goal of protecting 30% of the world’s lands and 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030.
Unfortunately, Australia’s unique and irreplaceable biodiversity is under siege from invasive species, drought caused by climate change, and land conversion. Securing permanent protection for as much of Australia’s lands and ocean, as quickly as possible, is key to safeguarding the world’s biodiversity.
As Wyss Foundation President Molly McUsic put it recently:
“The Wyss Foundation is proud to support protection of Australia’s diverse and globally significant landscapes. In a country where 85% of species exist nowhere else on Earth, it is critical that these unique landscapes are safeguarded from exploitation for future generations. These protections also contribute to the global goal of 30x30 and we’re thrilled to help community-driven and Traditional Owner-led (Indigenous-led) conservation efforts across Australia.”
The most recent Wyss-supported land protection success was achieved in the Eastern Outback with the acquisition of two former cattle stations, totaling approximately 315,000 acres: Lot 8 of “The Lakes” property, in north central Queensland; and the “Richardson” property in Cape York. The Lakes will become Queensland’s newest national park, safeguarding unique perched wetlands with a host of benefits for climate and nature.
These two acquisitions are the first investments of a larger Wyss Foundation commitment of up to $6 million to The Nature Conservancy to help state governments purchase privately owned wildlands from willing sellers and secure their permanent protection as national parks or other protected areas.
How does the Wyss Foundation work in Australia?
Since the Wyss Foundation’s founding in 1998, we have used a variety of strategies to protect the world’s last wild places including supporting education and advocacy, funding land acquisitions, and working with our partners to develop incentive structures to encourage governments to protect wild, intact landscapes. Australia is no different and, to date, the Foundation’s work in Australia has primarily focused on education, advocacy, and acquisitions as our primary strategies.
What Projects have the Wyss Foundation supported in Australia?
The following landscapes in Australia have been protected through education and advocacy campaigns that were supported, in part, by the Wyss Foundation:
Munga-Thirri-Simpson Desert National Park: Wyss philanthropy helped include a 7.2 million acre portion of the 8.9 million acre newly protected park in South Australia. Munga-Thirri-Simpson Desert National Park is now the largest national park in Australia and is the largest single protected area ever established with the aid of Wyss philanthropy. Vast swaths of parallel dunal desert, extensive playa lakes, spinifex grasslands, and acacia woodlands are now part of Australia’s largest national park. Due to remaining fossil fuel leases that predate the national park, the Wyss Foundation’s partners in this effort, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and The Wilderness Society South Australia, are now working to find a long-term resolution to permanently remove the threat of oil and gas development in this pristine landscape.
Wildflowers in Badmima Country | Photo credit: FLPA/AUSCAPE
Plan for Our Parks: This is an ambitious effort spearheaded by the Western Australia state government that will eventually protect over 12 million acres of land and nearshore ocean in Western Australia as new national parks, marine parks, and other protected areas. Over the past several years, the Wyss Foundation has provided modest operational support to the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Australia program to provide them with resources to work with the Western Australian government, landowners, Traditional Owners, and other stakeholders to realize Western Australia’s grand and inspiring vision to dramatically scale up its protected area estate. Since Wyss started supporting this effort in 2019, Western Australia has finalized protections for over 400,000 acres of land, including over 280,000 acres in protected areas that are now co-managed by Badimia Traditional Owners.
The following landscapes in Australia have been protected through land acquisitions that were funded, in part or in whole, by the Wyss Foundation:
Gayini Nimmie-Caira: Gayini Nimmie-Caira is a 216,222-acre sustainable agriculture zone and protected area in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, located in the Australian State of New South Wales. The land hosts incredible biodiversity and is important for migratory birds. The Wyss Foundation provided support to The Nature Conservancy Australia to complete protection of this landscape and the land has been deeded to the Nari Nari people – the Traditional Custodians of this land – for long-term stewardship. Land managers are applying a creative, matrix style approach to conserve nature whereby portions of the property remain in sustainable agriculture production while others are strictly protected.
Gayini Nimmie-Caira | Photo credit: The Nature Conservancy
Great Cumbung: Located immediately to the north of New South Wales’ Gayini Nimmie-Caira, the Great Cumbung is the largest remaining reed swamp in the Murray-Darling Basin. Two cattle ranches totaling 84,435 acres in the Great Cumbung were acquired by The Nature Conservancy in 2019, through a joint venture with Australia-based Tiverton Agriculture and with support from the Wyss Foundation. Together with other Wyss supported protections and an adjacent national park, more than 375,000 contiguous acres are now protected in perpetuity.
Nilpena West: The fossil beds found in South Australia’s Nilpena West are considered among the planet’s most extraordinary paleontological sites. The parched Outback landscape also supports a number of threatened native plant and animal species. In 2019, the Wyss Foundation provided a $370,000 grant to The Nature Conservancy Australia to assist in the purchase of a portion of Nilpena Station. In 2021, the South Australian government formally declared the 150,000-acre Nilpena West property as the Nilpena Ediacara National Park.
Mt. Gibson: Located in Queensland’s Cape York, this property exists at the convergence of two major bioregions – the Wet Tropics and the Einasleigh Uplands – containing twenty-three distinct ecosystems. Mt. Gibson contains habitat for thirteen endangered or near threatened mammals including the Northern Bettong, Northern Quoll, Spotted-tail Quoll, Bennett’s Tree-kangaroo, the Yellow Bellied Glider, and the Greater Large-eared Horseshoe Bat. In 2021, the Wyss Foundation provided funding to South Endeavour Trust to acquire the land and is now working with the Queensland government to secure the highest possible protections under Queensland law for privately managed conservation lands. This 85,250-acre property will help knit together a nearly 1 million acre assemblage of protected areas within the catchment (watershed) of the Great Barrier Reef.
The Wyss Foundation looks forward to continuing to work with Australian partners and Traditional Owners to support important conservation efforts in Australia and around the world to play our part in reaching the goal of protecting 30% of the planet by 2030.