In our final Science and Knowledge webinar for 2025, Professor Mike Letnic shared an overview of his research and findings on the topic of whether grazing by kangaroos disrupt the flow of food resources through brown food webs in arid environments.

The "brown food web" refers to the network of organisms that consume dead organic matter, which includes dead plants, animals, and waste. It is a decomposer-based food chain that contrasts with the "green food web," which is based on living plants and algae. Brown food webs are crucial for recycling nutrients, as they provide energy to a wide range of organisms like microbes, fungi, and scavengers that are a food source for other animals.

Welcome to the summer edition of Nature Matters, and our final for the year. We are excited to share our latest updates with you.

This edition features updates from across our nature reserve network, including our latest nature reserve acquisition, Pooginook West, in the Riverland region of South Australia. It also includes updates from our team, recent events and more.

We are seeking your support to kickstart the restoration of Pooginook West, through our Forever Nature Fund Summer Appeal.

Nature Foundation is delighted to announce the acquisition and establishment of its tenth nature reserve, Pooginook West Nature Reserve. This 2,396-hectare reserve is on the traditional lands of the Ngawait people, about 25 kilometres northeast of Waikerie.

Crucially, Pooginook West sits beside Pooginook Conservation Park to significantly increase the connectivity and amount of protected land available for local species. The site will also provide a southward migration pathway for key arid-zone species seeking cooler conditions as the climate changes. 

The Reserve Management team and Nature Foundation volunteers recently held the inaugural working bee at Mongolurring Nature Reserve in September 2025. Located east of Mount Bryan in South Australia’s midnorth, this 1,200-hectare area of mallee woodland was generously donated to Nature Foundation by a benefactor in June 2024. 

Volunteers Sonia and Tim Croft undertook an initial vegetation assessment in October 2024, which, in addition to assessing vegetation types and habitats across the western side of the reserve, identified evidence of invasive weeds, including African Boxthorn (Lycium ferocissum) and a localised patch of Horehound (Marrubium vulgare). Further assessment found African Boxthorn widespread across the nature reserve, with mature, dense patches dominating some areas.

Since 2022, 920 Iron-grass plants have been planted across Tiliqua Nature Reserve, a key step in restoring this Critically Endangered ecological community, located near Burra in South Australia’s mid north.

Approximately 680 Iron-grass (Lomandra multiflora ssp. Dura, Lomandra densiflora, and Lomandra effusa) plants, planted at the start of the restoration project, were contained within planting exclosures constructed to protect these highly palatable young plants from grazing by sheep and kangaroos. Three years on, these exclosures can be removed, allowing grazing between the establishing plants and assisting habitat management for the Endangered Pygmy Bluetongue Lizard (Tiliqua adelaidensis) and the Critically Endangered Pale Sun-moth (Synemon selene) that call the nature reserve home.