Vegetation Futures for Tasmania

We introduce an initiative to enhance the conservation of native vegetation in Tasmania. Our focus is on options to help restore connectivity across cleared landscapes. The island’s native vegetation comprises around 150 communities spanning complex environmental gradients and extremes in disturbance. The vegetation of catchments such as Port Davey, Wanderer-Giblin, Gordon-Franklin and Nelson Bay is largely intact whereas the vegetation of the Rubicon, Mersey, Macquarie and Coal catchments at lower elevation has been cleared or highly modified to support intensive land use. Existing vegetation is represented by around 34,000 patches of which fewer than 3 % exceed 50 ha in area. The significance of patches was mapped at a landscape scale to evaluate options for innovative management intervention. The Leven catchment in north-west Tasmania is one candidate for landscape scale revegetation to enhance ecosystem connectivity and facilitate carbon capture