Formed in 2016, Friends of the Forgotten Woodlands Inc. (FoFW) have worked collaboratively with Landcare volunteers, academics, Catchment Management Authorities, government landowners and managers to ensure the survival of the few remaining remnant populations of Banksia marginata, Allocasuarina verticillata and Bursaria spinosa across the VVP.

Through a range of traditional and innovative on-ground activities FoFW have propagated and planted over 45,000 plants over 150 different VVP sites. All propagation has been from remaining remnants. Not all previous remnants still survive! Thousands have been GPS recorded and GIS mapped thus ensuring an accurate and ongoing record for future seed collecting and restoration activities. Several special Seed Production Areas (SPA) have been established for all 3 species. 2080 Climate Matching has been part of the’ SPA Guidelines’.

FoFW has always understood the important role of science to underpin practical activities. Committee members include academics who have guided our decisions to initiate relevant research and our on-ground practices. Genetic studies of VVP remnant banksias, Banksia remnant Drought Tolerance research and SPA genetic mixing are such examples.

Forums and other Information sharing activities have also been central.

Over the past 10 years, FOFW has achieved a lot. There have certainly been many challenges and obstacles along the way but also lots of learnings. We look forward to sharing our story.

As land managers, Parks Victoria’s primary role in threatened species conservation is to conserve and protect healthy communities that support Victoria’s threatened species. We see our role as supporting, enabling and leveraging opportunities, skills and experience, but acknowledge we do not have the capacity or expertise to manage threatened species alone. With constrained resources, we rely on effective strategies to prioritise our work. We rely on connection to deliver well-informed, effective actions. We support research that builds our knowledge base.

With over 4 million hectares of diverse terrestrial estate spanning every corner of Victoria, Parks Victoria navigates challenges like diverse threats, multiple stakeholders and sometimes conflicting responsibilities. It can be a challenge to fit it all in. Nevertheless, our passionate staff work to deliver positive outcomes for threatened species in ways that align with and intertwine the four themes of the Symposium. In this talk, we provide examples of just some of these projects. Connection – ‘Un-extincting’ the Mountain Banksia from Burrowa – Pine Mountain National Park (with DEECA, RBGV, community partners)

Strategy – Snowgum dieback remote sensing: enabling hotspot detection and management prioritisation (in conjunction with ARC Linkage project partners)

Research – PeatSense: using remote sensing technology, long-term vegetation monitoring data, and hydrological probes to monitor condition of alpine peatlands (a NESP project led by La Trobe University)

Action – Landscape Restoration: revegetating sub-alpine communities on Mount Buffalo (a BushBank project)

Many of Victoria’s threatened plants occur on private land, including species and habitats that are poorly represented within the public reserve system. Protecting these places is therefore essential to preventing further loss. Private land can also provide important locations for threatened plant recovery, including translocations and reintroductions. This presentation will explore the role of Trust for Nature’s conservation covenants and owned reserves in protecting threatened plants and their habitats. Drawing on examples from across greater Melbourne and surrounding regions, it will examine what long-term protection can make possible, from safeguarding remnant vegetation to supporting active recovery programs. One example is the conservation and translocation of Rosella Spider-orchid, Caladenia rosella, undertaken through collaboration between Traditional Owners, landholders, Trust for Nature, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, government agencies, local government and the Australian Native Orchid Society. This work demonstrates that successful threatened plant conservation depends not only on suitable habitat, but also on enduring relationships, shared knowledge and coordinated action. The presentation will consider how private land conservation can complement the public reserve system, strengthen connections across fragmented landscapes and create secure places in which threatened plants can persist and recover. It will also reflect on the importance of working closely with landholders, whose long-term stewardship is central to protecting some of Victoria’s most significant remaining plant populations.

Native temperate grasslands of western Victoria are among Australia’s most threatened ecosystems, with many threatened grassland plant species now restricted to small and fragmented populations. Because a substantial proportion of the remaining grassland occurs on private land, long-term conservation outcomes depend on effective partnerships with landholders and evidence-based management approaches. Through complementary initiatives led by the Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority (GHCMA), seed produced through the Saving 17 Species program has been used to establish or augment populations of threatened grassland plants within a network of privately managed grasslands that are being monitored to evaluate ecological condition and management outcomes.

This presentation will describe how long-term monitoring is being used to assess vegetation condition and evaluate threatened plant (re)-introductions across privately managed grasslands in western Victoria. By combining seed additions with permanent monitoring, the project provides an opportunity to test whether threatened species can be successfully (re)-established in high-quality grasslands and to identify the conditions that support successful recruitment and establishment.

Early results show considerable variation in germination and establishment among species and sites, highlighting the importance of site context in restoration outcomes. Ongoing monitoring is being used to understand which species perform well, where they perform well, and whether newly established populations persist through time. The findings will help guide future restoration efforts, improve the targeting of recovery actions, and contribute to the development of self-sustaining populations of threatened grassland species on private land.

The Black Summer bushfires of 2019–2020 prompted many studies into how fire affected native plants, including the Tiny Spyridium (Spyridium cinereum), an endangered species listed under Victoria’s Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. In Victoria, the species occurs in two widely separated regions: far East Gippsland and the Grampians. We used this geographic separation to compare the genetic diversity of populations in the two regions. We also examined the genetic differences among plants regenerating on four coastal headlands south-west of Mallacoota, all located within 11 kilometres of one another.

The species regenerated strongly after the fires, and genetic analyses found no clones – meaning the regeneration is from seed. There were clear differences between the East Gippsland and Grampians populations, and distinct genetic groupings among the four coastal headlands, despite their close proximity. Overall, genetic differences between regions were substantial, while differences among the coastal headlands were moderate. Genetic diversity was lowest at Bastion Point, the site closest to Mallacoota, and highest in the two Grampians populations. However, estimated levels of inbreeding were lowest at Bastion Point and highest in the Grampians.

These findings have helped guide conservation seed collection. Particular attention has been given to Bastion Point, where nearby human activity increases the risk of disturbance. Because the coastal populations are regenerating well after fire and each headland has a distinct genetic profile, we recommend that seed collected from different headlands be kept separate rather than mixed.

Under climate change, fires in treed vegetation of southeastern Australia are expected to become more severe and frequent. Indeed, repeated fires over the past two decades have been contributed to alpine ash forest being listed as a threatened ecological community. I present modelling that shows that obligated-seeder forests, such as alpine ash, can transition quickly from being common to rare as fire regimes shorten by relatively small margins, supporting this listing decision. A second model illustrates how diversity of fire regimes (pyrodiversity) can increase or decrease the diversity of ecological communities, contrary to the paradigm that a positive relationship is expected, but consistent with empirical evidence of a diversity of relationships. This model predicts that ecological communities with a prevalence of old-growth species are expected to exhibit a positive relationship with pyrodiversity, but that an increased frequency of unplanned fires reduces both pyrodiversity and biodiversity in these communities. These models help to clarify how species and ecological communities are expected to respond to increased fire occurrence under climate change.

Seed banking provides invaluable insurance against extinction by safeguarding genetically representative seed collections for long-term conservation, research and restoration. The Victorian Conservation Seedbank (VCS) at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria contributes to a national network working to secure Australia’s unique flora in the face of climate change, habitat loss, fragmentation and invasive species. In addition, the VCS is one of relatively few seedbanks globally extending ex situ conservation efforts to the banking of spores from threatened fern and lycophyte species. This presentation highlights how seed banking supports plant conservation across Victoria through complementary activities. Examples of seed and spore collection programs will illustrate the objectives and practical challenges of securing high-quality conservation collections. Results from longevity testing of stored seed collections demonstrate the importance of ongoing monitoring to ensure collections remain viable for future use. Research into dormancy and germination requirements among threatened Victorian species highlights the value of species-specific germination studies for improving our understanding of species ecology, recruitment processes and enabling the effective use of banked seed. A restoration-focused case study integrating germination research, population genetics and field surveys will demonstrate how conservation seed collections can support on-ground restoration.

While pollinators are critical for plant reproduction, they are very rarely considered when establishing new populations of endangered species. Using threatened Caladenia from Victoria, we aim to enhance long-term success of orchid conservation translocations by using pollinators in site selection, developing strategies to mitigate risks of hybridisation, and optimising plant reproduction through planting design. Our work has demonstrated that pollinators are patchily distributed in the landscape but some species are more geographically widespread than the orchid, providing the opportunity to select appropriate sites based on future climate change. Hybridisation with the focal threatened species can be minimised through knowledge of which orchid species share pollinators and an understanding of pollinator flight distances. Orchid species with rewarding or deceptive pollination strategies differ in their relationship between reproductive success and population size, meaning that the planting design can be altered based on pollination strategy to maximise per individual reproductive success. Beyond the current project, we aim to establish best-practice protocols to fast-track the establishment of self-sustaining populations.

Wrinkled Buttons (Leiocarpa gatesii) is endemic to the Otway Ranges in Victoria, Australia. Once considered extinct, in recent decades it has increasingly been found colonising fuel breaks and disturbed track margins, where most known plants have been found. Track maintenance is identified as a threat in the species’ National Recovery Plan. We discuss the practical implications of fire regime and track maintenance for the conservation of this species.

Understanding plant responses to disturbance is critical for their management and conservation. We reviewed the disturbance ecology of an Wrinkled Buttons and show that previous assumptions about its life history and disturbance response are incorrect.

Existing information suggested that Wrinkled Buttons is a short-lived species that depends on a soil seed bank, released from dormancy by fire-related cues. In contrast, here we show that Wrinkled Buttons is a rhizomatous perennial, capable of re-shooting from fragments buried in soil moved by machinery. Its seeds germinate immediately with moisture and light, without promotion by smoke or heat. Comparison of transects on tracksides and within forests shows that Wrinkled Buttons is somewhat associated with tracksides, but not restricted to them, many plants occur in long-undisturbed forests. Plants on tracksides are more likely to be in flower, have more flowers, and shorter stems, compared to forest plants.

We suggest that the apparent extinction of Wrinkled Buttons, and the lack of records away from disturbed track margins, is a result of its low detectability when not in flower, rather than its disappearance into a soil seed bank.

There are currently 916 plant species listed nationally as either endangered or critically endangered – a considerable proportion of the approximately 24,000 native Australian plant species, of which 85% are endemic to the continent. While not all of them are at imminent risk, 35 species are already extinct. Is enough being done to ensure we do not lose more? Working across land tenures and in partnership with Traditional Owners, land managers, and community groups, Threatened Species Conservancy strives to deliver on-ground conservation action to reverse the decline of our most threatened plants and animals, championing small and non-charismatic species that tend to be left out from priority lists, but are important components of local ecosystems.

One such species is the critically endangered Ballantinia antipoda (Southern Shepherd’s Purse), a tiny annual herb of granite outcrops threatened by invasive weeds, habitat destruction, and fire. Threatened Species Conservancy leads an ongoing collaborative effort to recover this unique plant through translocation and habitat restoration works. The translocation was possible thanks to funding from the Australian Government through the Saving Native Species program, but the capacity to continue this work and deliver more similar projects is undermined by limited funding opportunities at the state level.

Matchstick grasshoppers are flightless and unique to Australia, occupying a variety of habitats across the continent where they feed on native trees, shrubs, daisies and other plants. They include species now listed as threatened or with increasingly restricted distributions, particularly in the case of species with former distributions across agricultural and/or urban areas. However, re-introductions may be possible given their flightless nature and ability to persist in small areas. Here I consider reintroductions for two species, the (now) listed species Keyacris scurra and the non-listed species Vandiemenella viatica whose range has severely contracted in the last 200 years. Both species have annual life cycles. Translocations with V. viatica were initiated 6 years ago and some sites remain successfully colonized despite loss of genetic variation within sites. Chrysocephalum daisy species particularly C. semipapposum as well as grasses and low shrubs appear key species to success in revegetated areas. Two early translocations with Keyacris scurra also appear successful so far, again following revegetation with Asteraceae and plants expected to provide protection for the grasshoppers. These results provide a novel approach for conserving low vagility invertebrate species that can be implemented in small fragments with flow on effects to local biodiversity generally.

Plant conservation in a rapidly changing world has many challenges. Taxonomic progress should fundamentally inform conservation research and applications, through confident definitions of taxonomic boundaries. However, in biodiverse countries like Australia, the pace of taxonomy is not keeping up with fundamental conservation demands. We here outline a multi-faceted approach to providing a new baseline for taxonomic decision-making supported by molecular data. We believe that a two-tiered approach will address most questions in a cost-effective manner. The first is creation of a robust species-level phylogeny for all taxa in a region. The second is the creation of infra-specific molecular data at a scale appropriate for resolution of species boundaries. We believe that the pace of taxonomy can be rapidly advanced, and public confidence increased, through the systematic generation of essential baseline molecular data. We will present current research programs from the National Herbarium of New South Wales, and their implications for the flora of Victoria due to our many shared species. Emphasis will be placed on orchids, peas and sedges.