AWC

Martin Copley was a British financier and insurance underwriter who first visited Australia in 1966. In 1991 he purchased a property in Chidlow, Western Australia to be used for conservation purposes as it had a large area of natural bushland. The Australian Wildlife Conservancy traces its origins back to this purchase. Copley moved to Australia in 1994 and in 2001 the AWC became a public charitable organisation. It now owns 22 sanctuaries covering more than 2.6 million hectares around Australia. The organisation employs approximately 80 staff and manages more conservation land then any other government or non-government organisation in Australia.

The Nailtail Wallaby

Australian Wildlife Conservancy is actively protecting 300 ecosystems, 100 of which are throated, and 170 different threatened animal species. It continues its conservation work by acquiring land to establish sanctuaries for threatened species and ecosystems, by conducting conservation programs, such as the eradication of feral animals and the reintroduction of endangered species, conducting scientific research and undertaking public education promoting the awareness of problems facing Australia's wildlife.

Volunteer working for AWC at Scotia.

A significant part of AWCs work has been the Threatened Species Reintroduction program. Some 27 species of mammals only found in Australia have become extinct on the mainland; many more are in such a critical condition that they are nearing extinction. Some of these species have survived on offshore islands. This has allowed an opportunity to save these animals from total extinction by building up their population in a safe environment and then reintroducing them back to where they used to roam. AWC has a number of breeding programs in feral free areas and are set to reintroduce species such as: the Banded Hare-wallaby, Bilby, Bridled Nailtail Wallaby, Burrowing Bettong, Numbat and Shark Bay Mouse.

The Mala, being brought back from the brink of extinction.

In one of the most exciting projects AWC have taken on is the management of 150,000 hectacres of wilderness in the north-west Kimberley. This property has proved to be a "lost world". There are possibly 50 species of reptiles, mammals and birds which have survived here and nowhere else in Australia. At present scientists and ecologists are doing a 'stocktake' to discover how rich this area is.