Environment Minister Peter Garrett has launched Bush Blitz - a three-year multi-million dollar partnership to document the plants and animals in properties across Australia's National Reserve System.
Bush Blitz will bring together BHP Billiton, with a $4 million investment, not-for-profit conservation research organisation Earthwatch who will manage field safety and coordinate volunteer 'citizen scientists' and rangelands survey group the National Scientific Reference Site Network.
The program has started with a dozen researchers setting traps to search for rare frogs, moths and small marsupials.
Australia is home to over 560,000 native species, many found nowhere else on earth - yet only one-quarter of this biodiversity has been scientifically documented.
Bush Blitz will be supported by CSIRO, museums, herbaria and governments across the country with dozens of Australia's scientists and corporate volunteers.
Earthwatch will manage the health and safety of Bush Blitz surveys and coordinate corporate volunteers to assist the scientific teams.
Bush Blitz was launched with a scientific expedition at Darkwood - a 1,035 hectare property recently added to New England National Park and managed by the NSW Parks and Wildife Service. It is part of a package of six properties which the Australian Government helped the NSW Government to add to the reserve system in 2009 through the $14.75 million from Caring for our Country program.
Nestled beneath the soaring cliffs of the Dorrigo Plateau and next to the World Heritage Gondwana Rainforests, Darkwood protects the headwaters of the Bellinger River and helps create an important wildlife corridor protecting the habitat of several nationally threatened species. It has never been scientifically surveyed and its species have never been documented.
A Bush Blitz report released today, Focusing on the Landscape: Biodiversity in Australia's National Reserve System, assesses the state of knowledge of biodiversity in the National Reserve System,based on records of 20,146 terrestrial fauna and flora species (54 per cent of Australia's known terrestrial species).
The report found that over 88 per cent of the plants and animals are adequately or well-represented in the reserve system, but there are still important knowledge gaps to fill, with inadequate information on one-third of the species.
For information about Bush Blitz and the report visit www.bushblitz.org.au.
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