Andrea Fullagar
Honours, University of Queensland, July 2009 – May 2010 (Jointly supervised with Prof. Hugh Possingham)
Research Assistant, July 2010 – current
Email: andrea.fullagar@uqconnect.edu.au
I recently completed my Honours project within the Spatial Ecology Lab, where I investigated how to prioritise ecological restoration for a 250,000 hectare area in south-west Western Australia.
Gondwana Link is one of the most ambitious restoration projects of its kind in Australia and aims to revegetate 1000 square kilometres of land across the south-west coast of W.A. My study area was the ‘Fitz-Stirling’, located between the Stirling Ranges and the Fitzgerald River National Park, which had been extensively cleared for agriculture. I was drawn to this project for two main reasons. Firstly, considering the extent of habitat destruction in Australia, I consider large scale restoration as necessary to conservation as protecting intact areas. In addition, I believe that too often science is removed from on-the-ground practical management and I saw this project as providing a link between the two.
I applied Marxan; a reserve-selection software developed by The Ecology Centre at UQ, to prioritise where restoration could be allocated given different budget scenarios. A lot of restoration to date within the Fitz-Stirling has been opportunistic and ad hoc and the aim of my project was to provide a more strategic and cost-effective approach to landscape management. I am hoping my project will assist Gondwana Link in deciding where to revegetate next in the Fitz-Stirling, by mapping potential restoration pathways that achieve set targets for different vegetation associations.
Currently, I am working to prepare my Honours thesis for publication in the scientific literature.
