Eastern Outback Parks (Australia)

Springs on former Richardson Cattle Station, Photo courtesy of Queensland Department of Environment and Science.

Australia is one of just seventeen megadiverse countries – countries that collectively are home to seventy percent of the world’s flora and fauna. It is also a member of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, a group of more than one hundred countries that pledged to support an international goal of protecting thirty percent of the world’s lands and thirty percent of the world’s ocean by 2030. Unfortunately, Australia’s unique and irreplaceable biodiversity is under siege from invasive species, extreme drought juxtaposed with massive rain events 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.

With this goal in mind, the Wyss Foundation has partnered with The Nature Conservancy to help state governments in Australia’s Eastern Outback purchase privately owned wildlands from willing sellers and secure their permanent protection as national parks or other protected areas. The Eastern Outback includes portions of the states of Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia.

The Nature Conservancy has used Wyss Foundation and Art into Acres funding support to help Australian state governments purchase portions of three former cattle stations, totaling approximately 400,000 acres: The Lakes, located in north central Queensland; Richardson, located further north of The Lakes in Cape York Queensland; and Brindingabba in New South Wales. Alongside the Queensland government, The Nature Conservancy helped upgrade the Lakes properties to a national park—the Lakes National Park in Queensland. Additionally, in partnership with Holdfast Collective, the Wyss Foundation helped also purchase the Comeroo property, part of the Eastern Outback Parks. The Queensland and New South Wales Governments work alongside local communities and Traditional Owners to ensure the permanent protection of these areas.