Westmoreland Station is 90,000 hectares and Cliffdale Station is 169,000, side by side on the Gulf Plains in Queensland's far north west, where floodplain grasslands, eucalypt woodland and chains of wetlands run down to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Kendall River Station is 137,000 hectares on the western side of Cape York Peninsula, intact woodland, savanna and wetland around the river that gives it its name. On Thursday the Queensland Government announced it is acquiring all three for the state's protected area network, almost 396,000 hectares in one go. Gulf Plains country is among the most intact tropical savanna in Australia, and until now less than eight per cent of it was protected, so the two Gulf stations change the picture there at a stroke. Among the residents are the Carpentarian grasswren, the grey falcon and the golden shouldered parrot, all threatened, and at Kendall River the palm cockatoo, the big black bird that drums on hollow trees with a stick.
Read the full story: Three major Queensland land acquisitions to add almost 396,000 hectares to Australia's protected area network, The Nature Conservancy Australia.
Money for the purchase came from several directions at once. The Queensland Government bought the land with The Nature Conservancy and two philanthropic partners, the Wyss Foundation and the Holdfast Collective, which is the non profit owner of the outdoor clothing company Patagonia. "Philanthropy plays a critical role in accelerating the pace of conservation," said Molly McUsic, president of the Wyss Foundation. Mike Roache, the Conservancy's protected landscapes director in Australia, said the properties provide habitat for several threatened species and keep whole processes going, the seasonal floods, the natural fire and the movement of wildlife across connected country. Dr James Fitzsimons, the Conservancy's senior adviser on global protection, put the purchases in a wider frame: Australia has promised to protect 30 per cent of its land by 2030, and in his words success "won't be measured by commitments alone" but by whether important ecosystems are actually secured and looked after. Which Traditional Owners the three stations belong to, and what the land will be called once it is dedicated, are the questions we have put to the Conservancy. For now, three big pieces of the north have a new future, and the grasswren has a lot more room to sing.
Sources and links
Our short take: from The Nature Conservancy Australia's media release (15 October 2026), sent to Earth to Sea News by SenateSHJ, with the 30 by 30 target from Australia's commitment under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
- Three major Queensland land acquisitions to add almost 396,000 hectares to Australia's protected area network, The Nature Conservancy Australia The release.
- Growing the protected area estate, Queensland Government How acquired land becomes protected area.
- Wyss Foundation The partner.
- Holdfast Collective Patagonia's non profit owner (check the address resolves).
