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Wildlife conservation funding

6 March 2009

More than $200,000 in funding for conservation and research projects will enhance protection of South Australia's wildlife.

Environment and Conservation Minister Jay Weatherill has announced the recipients of the 2009 grants, which include universities, research agencies, local councils, community and volunteer groups and individuals.

The grants are awarded annually to assist projects designed to protect biodiversity.

"Previously the grants have been awarded only for research, to help us gain better knowledge of the issues threatening South Australia's wildlife and how to address them," Mr Weatherill says.

"But this year we have also awarded grants for conservation - providing an opportunity for community and volunteer groups to secure funding for their many worthwhile projects.

'Both research and conservation projects contribute to the target in South Australia's Strategic Plan of no species loss".

The successful conservation projects include:

  • an assessment of potential translocation sites for Mallee Emu-wren in Billiatt Conservation Park, Murraylands
  • Minda dunes weed control and dune restoration project: increasing the distribution of threatened plants in one of Adelaide's last remaining dune systems.
  • Sandhill Dunnart monitoring in the Great Victoria Desert
  • protecting threatened vegetation communities at Bondleigh
  • conservation genetics of an endangered marsupial, the Southern Brown Bandicoot, in south-eastern South Australia

The successful research projects include:

  • Black-flanked Rock-wallaby ecology in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands
  • increasing community awareness to better manage habitat and biodiversity for the vulnerable ground-dwelling bird, the Bush Stone-curlew, in the Murraylands 
  • the role of dispersal in post-fire colonisation: an investigation of genetics in three lizard species
  • Pup production assessment of the Australian sea lion at Dangerous Reef and English Island
  • developing a screening tool to determine the impact of climate change on seed germination in threatened native plant species
  • the impact of fire on Macrofungal diversity on Kangaroo Island
  • what size Marine Protected Area Sanctuary Zones need to be to protect the near-threatened Western Blue Groper and Harlequin fish

This year's grants, totalling $210,000, are the largest ever allocation of the annual grants.