Designing Revegetation Projects For Wildlife
Farm
forestry can help to protect plants and animals by providing
and protecting a native habitat.
In general, more layers of vegetation will support
a wider variety of wildlife by providing a greater range of
habitats. There is benefit in adding a diverse mix of vegetation
layers into planting design, including understorey shrubs,
taller middle-storey shrubs and/or small trees, and an upper
canopy of taller tree species. Patchiness in a landscape also
creates diversity and can be achieved by planting clumps or
strips of different tree species next to each other and/or
incorporating trees of different ages in adjoining patches.
Patches that are interconnected by corridors of vegetation
are more likely to sustain populations of wildlife than isolated
patches. Trees can be planted to link existing forest remnants
or create new habitat patches, provided they are linked to
each other. Whenever possible, creating corridors that lead
nowhere should be avoided unless they are sufficiently large
and structurally diverse enough to act as habitat in their
own right.
Generally, larger areas of habitat support a
more abundant and diverse range of plants and animals than
smaller areas of the same habitat type. Shape is also important.
Long, thin plantings are vulnerable to degrading edge effects
such as increased nest predation and weed invasion. Trees
should be planted in compact areas to both provide habitat
and to protect against impacts from adjoining land uses. Patches
should have the least possible edge, and linking vegetation
should be as wide as possible. Riparian vegetation and corridors
are particularly susceptible to edge effects. Farm forestry
plantings can be used to protect existing native vegetation
from edge effects by planting buffers of trees around the
margins of existing remnant vegetation or along the edges
of riparian vegetation.
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