Synopsis

Universal values of the Gondwana Rainforests World Heritage Areas include a suite of species of Gondwana origin. One of these species is the rufous scrub-bird - atrichornis rufescent - which is listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Under NSW legislation, it’s a vulnerable species and is placed in the ‘landscape managed species’ category. This is because the species is distributed across relatively large areas and is subject to threatening processes that generally act at the landscape scale, such as habitat loss or degradation, rather than at distinct, definable locations.

The NSW Government Office of Environment and Heritage is a partner organisation for this project.

Aims 

Current remote sensing technologies make it possible to develop tools for rapid, landscape-scale detection of habitat loss across the distribution range of the species and thus, may help to prevent or reduce degradation.

This project will evaluate the effectiveness of different remote sensing tools (Sentinel imagery, aerial photographs, Landsat images, for example) to detect significant changes in the condition of rufous scrub-bird habitats in the cool temperate forests of the New England National Park.

Get involved

To learn more about this project, contact Professor Graciela Metternicht.

E: g.metternicht@unsw.edu.au
T: +61 2 9385 5761