Saving our Species conservation program
Today, we’re at risk of losing nearly 1000 of our state’s native animals and plants. That’s why the NSW Government established Saving our Species. It's the main threatened species conservation program in the state, and the biggest conservation commitment ever made in NSW.
Read more about Saving our Species conservation program
Our objectives are simple:
- Maximise the number of threatened species that are secure in the wild in NSW for 100 years.
- Control the threats facing our threatened plants and animals.
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is a partner of Saving our Species.
What we're doing
Saving our Species (SoS) is investing in over 400 threatened species and ecological communities, from the brush-tailed rock-wallaby to the spotted-tailed quoll:
- To protect our threatened species, we’re implementing projects to control threats, including feral animal and weed control.
- The Feral predator-free areas project aims to reintroduce at least 13 mammal species currently extinct in NSW. Three of the feral predator-free areas are being delivered in partnership with Australian Wildlife Conservancy and University of NSW (UNSW Sydney) operating as Wild Deserts.
- We're investing in surveillance to detect priority weeds in Kosciuszko National Park. These weeds are key threats to the biodiversity of our native landscapes. NPWS hawkweed eradication detector dogs are searching the Main Range for mouse-ear hawkweed. Drone teams are also scanning the Jagungal Wilderness to detect orange hawkweed.
- The Mount Kaputar Land Snail and Slug Threatened Ecological Community (TEC) is a group of snails and one slug found nowhere else in the world. NPWS has partnered with SoS to deliver a project that will increase our understanding of this species' ecology and help us manage threats to its survival.
Bushfire recovery
We're working tirelessly to assess the impact of the 2019-20 bushfires on our vulnerable animals and plants, so we can adapt our projects and deliver intervention on the ground where it's needed most.
As part of this, NPWS and SoS have worked as partners:
- To save the rare prehistoric Nightcap Oak from bushfires in north-east NSW
- To provide supplementary food to endangered brush-tailed rock-wallabies and mountain pygmy-possums
- To introduce strategies to help many other plants and animals to ensure their survival in the wild.
Working together
The work of SoS is only possible with help from NPWS, volunteers, scientists, businesses, community groups and the NSW Government. We're working together to secure the future of Australia’s unique plants and animals.
Threatened species projects
- Brush-tailed rock-wallaby conservation project
- Assets of Intergenerational Significance (AIS)
- Beach-nesting birds
- Carbon sequestration projects
- Cumberland Plain restoration program
- Eastern bristlebird conservation program
- Feral predator-free areas project
- Gould's petrel conservation project
- Koala conservation project
- Malleefowl conservation project
- Monitoring rainforest frogs in Gondwana Rainforest
- Mount Kaputar land snail and slug project
- Mountain pygmy-possum project
- Southern corroboree frog conservation project
- The Cliffhanging 5