Active project · Stage 2
Biodiversity
The Thin Green Line: protecting our essential corridors
Kangaloon – Robertson – Illawarra Escarpment. WinZero is proud to lead Stage 2 of a nationally significant project reconnecting forest between Macquarie Pass and Budderoo National Parks.
A critical biodiversity bottleneck
The thinnest point on a 3,600 km corridor
The Great Eastern Ranges Initiative extends 3,600 km from Cape York to the Mornington Peninsula. The area between Macquarie Pass and Budderoo National Parks is its thinnest point for forest connectivity.
Building on the success of Stage 1, the Thin Green Line Stage 2 acts as a vital corridor for maintaining genetic diversity, providing refugia and enabling species to migrate south to cooler climates: a crucial adaptation strategy against climate change.
- Connecting patches of high-conservation native habitat
- Safeguarding Threatened Ecological Communities like the Robertson Rainforest and Southern Highlands Shale Forest
- Protecting designated Areas of Regional Koala Significance (ARKS)
Stage 2 initiatives & outcomes
A landscape-scale approach
A coordinated effort to restore connectivity and build ecological resilience.
On-ground restoration
- 15 hectares of targeted weed control
- 10 sensitive sites fenced
- Coordinated feral animal reduction
- Focus on quoll population recovery
Koala habitat
- WaterNSW: 6,000 seedlings over 11.7 ha (Tourist Rd)
- South East LLS: 13 landholder projects
- 2,850 native tubestock planted
- 22.5 hectares of koala habitat weed control
Youth & education
- Young REPS student nursery program
- 5,000 tubestock grown by students
- 6 landholder and volunteer workshops
- Strengthening local ecological knowledge
Integrating cultural knowledge
Millennia of land management
True conservation requires acknowledging and using millennia of traditional land management. The Thin Green Line project collaborates closely with the Illawarra Local Aboriginal Land Council:
- Developing formal partnership agreements
- Implementing culturally appropriate land management strategies
- Embedding Aboriginal ecological knowledge into restoration plans
A collaborative effort driven by
- NSW NPWS
- South East LLS
- Robertson Environment Protection Society (REPS)
- WaterNSW
- University of Wollongong
- Southern Highlands Landcare Network
- Wingecarribee Shire Council
Wild Neighbours · UOW monitoring initiative
A threatened neighbour, living unseen
The spotted-tailed quoll is a threatened carnivorous marsupial that relies on healthy forest and farmland mosaics. In this critical corridor we know very little about where quolls persist or how they move through the landscape, especially on private land. The Wild Neighbours project with the University of Wollongong is closing that knowledge gap.
Are you a landholder between Kangaloon, Robertson and the escarpment? Get in touch to find out how you can be part of it.
Help close the gap
Members and donors make projects like the Thin Green Line possible. Every dollar goes further when local volunteers do the work.