Discovering the hidden world of biodiversity in OneFortyOne’s forest estate

Story published in our 2023 Annual Review

Understanding Our Forest Estates

Our forest estates are so much more than just trees. They are complex, thriving ecosystems, and we are their caretakers.

The challenge, though, is understanding exactly what we are taking care of. In the words of management guru Peter Drucker, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”.

Building a Baseline of Data

OneFortyOne already has decades – worth of understanding about the location and nature of sites with heritage or biodiversity status across the forest estate, but a gap lies in the knowledge of the type, extent and condition of conservation features. It’s this data that Janeth Mackenzie, Manager, Planning and Compliance, and her team are collecting and monitoring. They’re focused on building a baseline of data using ecological surveys, which will provide a point from which to measure the ongoing health of the flora and fauna.

“We have identified biodiversity values such as wetlands, woodlands, and rare, threatened and endangered species across our forest estate. The majority of these values are located within small and scattered areas of native vegetation that we call ‘inliers’,” says Janeth.

Discovering and Protecting Biodiversity

The inliers contain more than 80 threatened species of flora and fauna. “We found the native Australian Sweet-grass (Glyceria australis), which is classified as endangered, something we haven’t seen before,” says Janeth. “The monitoring is also showing birds – we’ve discovered that Wedge-tailed Eagles nest in the pines. We know these areas are the habitats of a number of species.”

Remediation work to preserve conservation zones across the estate is already under way with the help of Nature Glenelg Trust (NGT), a community environmental non- government organisation.” NGT does the physical work of determining the condition of the inliers, including the presence of weeds and threatened species and they advise us on what actions to take to restore or improve these areas and protect values,” says Janeth.

Focus Areas and Future Plans

Two key focus areas for the work are the removal of noxious weeds, and the identification of areas that might be heavily impacted by ‘wildlings’ (self-sown pine seedlings). The Biodiversity Monitoring team can advise OneFortyOne’s Green Triangle Estate team which weeds to eradicate in the inliers and how to do it in a way that won’t adversely impact the species in the area.

Janeth’s team also works with the Estate team to ensure that if machinery has to be brought into inliers, it can be done in a way that avoids harm. The Biodiversity Monitoring project is measuring the changes in condition and fauna in the inliers, as well as identifying further management actions. The aim is to monitor the effectiveness of targeted management actions more widely across the estate and inform future decisions.

“Ultimately, this work will enable effective management of biodiversity values throughout our estate by embedding appropriate practices,” says Janeth.

“We’ve also started to look at using remote detecting techniques to determine the extent of pine wilding presence within the estate and its surrounding native vegetation areas, and develop a pine wilding vulnerability index for native vegetation.”

The project is still in its early days – year two of a five-year project – and already OneFortyOne has embedded conservation activities resulting from this project across the business and through the estate management lifecycle.

Key conservation activities