Earth to Sea News, Issue No. 29
A lagoon ringed by woodland on Kendall River Station, Cape York Peninsula. Photo: Justine Hausheer, The Nature Conservancy. Good morning. This week
Author
Nicole McMahon
Conservation
Three cattle stations the size of a small country are now Queensland's newest protected land
Two stations on the Gulf Plains and one on Cape York Peninsula, almost 396,000 hectares of wetlands, waterholes and savanna woodland, are joining Australia's protected area network. Queensland bought them with The Nature Conservancy and two philanthropic partners.
Conservation
Uluru's mala are back to nearly 500, and a robot dog walks the fence
Mala, the rufous hare wallaby, vanished from the wild in 1991. Twenty four were brought home to Uluru in 2005. This May, Anangu, Mala Rangers and park staff counted them at nearly 500.
Global Good News
Up to three million people lived in the western Amazon two thousand years ago. Then the forest grew back over them
Fly a laser scanner over the rainforest of Acre in western Brazil and the ground underneath gives up its secrets: ring after ring of ditches and banks, dug by a people archaeologists now call the Aquiry, who may have numbered three million at their height.
Innovations
Three Barkandji women took a bush medicine to the lab, and kept the knowledge
Paaru Natural Products was founded by three Malyangapa and Barkandji women on medicinal plant knowledge handed down through their mothers' lines. With CSIRO they have turned it into a process six times more efficient, and the plant's identity never left the room.
Conservation
Three zoo born red wolf pups were slipped into a wild den. Their new mother took them as her own
America's rarest wolf lives wild in one corner of North Carolina, fewer than forty animals in all. In April three pups born at a zoo in Missouri were placed in a wild mother's den at seven days old. Months later, the cameras found all three alive and growing.
Conservation
Nine years after the caves went quiet, the bogongs are tiling the walls again
In 2017 the bogong moths all but vanished. People who climbed into the alpine caves that spring found bare rock. This October the moths are back in their billions, and at Zoos Victoria there have been happy tears.
Explore
Gunlom's pools are open again, on Jawoyn terms
Gunlom is the waterfall everyone knows, an 85 metre drop with a natural pool at the top looking out over Kakadu. It closed in 2019 and stayed closed for almost six years. On 1 July it opened again, and the reason it took that long is the best part of the story.
Conservation
Twice a week, a grocer's leftovers go up the hill to Dural's wildlife
On 35 acres of bush at Dural, against Berowra Valley National Park, a sanctuary founded in 1977 has cared for Sydney's injured and orphaned wildlife on volunteer hours and donated food. Twice a week the boxes come up the hill from the Harris Farm store, and now there is a cool room to keep them.
Explore
Manly to North Head, one blessed morning and four quiet beaches
An early start from the ferry, a family of brush turkeys, cockatoos free falling out of the canopy, and a swim I could not resist. Five special places, one short ferry ride from home.
Earth to Sea News, Issue No. 28
Giant waterlily pads, the Amazon cousins of the new species, near Iquitos on the Peruvian Amazon. Photo: Unsplash. Good morning. This week
Global Good News
Hiding in an Instagram photo: a giant waterlily nobody had named
In 2021 a Colorado nursery owner posted a photo of himself beside some very large lily pads on a river in eastern Colombia. At Kew, Carlos Magdalena knew no giant waterlily had ever been recorded there. A satellite search and one night boat ride later, Victoria colombiana has a name.