Metro recognised for Biodiversity on the Rails
Metro recognised for Biodiversity on the Rails
Metro’s commitment to maintaining and improving areas of ecological significance has recently been recognised by the Infrastructure Sustainability Council, with Metro’s Biodiversity Management Program listed as a finalist in the award for Excellence in Environmental.
Although not apparent, rail reserves are often found as uninterrupted pathways of natural vegetation, untouched by industrial and agricultural influence. They are like time capsules- representative of the local indigenous vegetation prior to land clearing.
These corridors provide an important habitat for threatened and endangered animals and link up other areas of habitat such as road and nature reserves, and waterway easements.
In areas known to contain threatened ecological values, Metro’s specialist teams actively manage weeds and pests to give native species the best chance of success.
Ecological burns have become ‘business as usual’, in a best practice program of ‘mosaic’ burning.
Mosaic burning promotes biodiversity by creating the conditions for native plants to thrive, whilst ensuring any native animals sheltering in the vegetation have somewhere to live until the new plants grow.
Since the implementation of Metro’s Biodiversity Management Program there has been a 314% increase in threatened species abundance since baseline studies were completed in 2018.
This is a fantastic result for biodiversity in the reserves.
By Michaela Balkin