Managing vegetation change under current and future conditions – Prof Stephen Hopper

Project Description

Managing vegetation change under current and future conditions, a perspective from old, climatically buffered, infertile landscapes (OCBILs) in Western Australia.- Prof Stephen Hopper

Australian Association of Bush Regenerators members were treated to a rare west-coast perspective when Professor Stephen Hopper AC joined our recent webinar, Managing vegetation change under current and future conditions – a perspective from old, climatically buffered, infertile landscapes (OCBILs) in Western Australia.

Drawing on more than 50 years in conservation biology, including leadership roles at Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Steve walked us through the quiet power of OCBILs:

• old, climatically buffered, infertile landscapes
• found in about half of the world’s Global Biodiversity Hotspots
• central to both of Australia’s hotspots: the Southwest Australian Floristic Region and the Forests of East Australia.

His early work as Western Australia’s first flora conservation research scientist showed that around two-thirds of genuinely rare and threatened plant species in the southwest are restricted to “little bumps” in the landscape. Think granite outcrops, lateritic mesas and iconic ranges such as the Stirling Range and Fitzgerald River National Park. These upland patches act as long-term refuges on very old, very nutrient-poor ground.

Steve contrasted these OCBILs with YODFELs
(young, often disturbed, fertile landscapes) such as lowland wetlands and alluvial flats. While the lowlands are where we tend to intervene most heavily, his message was clear: uplands and rock outcrops deserve a very light touch.

In southern Western Australia, climate change is showing up less as flooding and more as persistent drying since the 1970s, with major implications for fire and wetlands. Empodisma peat swamps in the southern forests, once wet year-round, can now be dry for up to six months, leaving ancient peat deposits extremely fire-prone. A single escaped burn can send 5–10,000 years of peat – and habitat for species such as Cephalotus follicularis – up in smoke.

A highlight of the talk was Steve’s long partnership with Noongar Elders, including the teaching captured in two words: Kaat (head / hilltops) and Beeliar (fresh water / mother’s milk). The guidance is simple and profound: look after the hilltops and the water, and country will largely look after itself.

Through examples of cool, small, carefully timed cultural burns, Steve showed how precision fire at the scale of square metres contrasts sharply with broadscale prescribed burning, and why this matters for biodiversity, peat swamps and granite-pool refuges.

For bush regenerators and land managers, his challenge was to rethink disturbance, fire and even seed sourcing through an OCBIL lens, and to work more closely with Traditional Owners wherever we can.

*Stephen D. Hopper AC has worked over 50 years as a conservation biologist and academic. He also led as Director Perth’s Kings Park and Botanic Garden (1992-2004), and London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2006-2012). Today, Steve’s research focuses on sustainable living with biodiversity. He collaborates especially with Aboriginal Elders. He is author/coauthor of more than 300 scientific papers and several books, including Eucalyptus, Soul of the Desert, Life on the Rocks and Kangaroo paws and Catspaws.