There’s been a longstanding notion in the north that pastoralists and conservationists are not a pairing you would have at a dinner party.
But Bullo River Station on the edge of the east Kimberley has never really toed the line.
It has always been a place for big dreamers and non-conventional visions, from the days when American fighter pilot Charlie Henderson took over, to his widow and famous author Sara Henderson and her daughters, to now.
Applying a conservation lens
Alexandra and Julian Burt bought Bullo River Station in 2017.
Both have a prominent West Australian pastoral lineage and a vision of running a station through a conservation lens.
They have a 10-year agreement with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) to demonstrate how conservation and pastoral activities can co-exist.
“I was naturally inclined to be a person that liked four-legged animals — cattle — but also loved the natural world equally,” Mr Burt said.
“And the whole ethos of Bullo is to have equal consideration for both — when you do any sorts of decisions that you do, whether it’s a conservation decision or it’s a partial decision.
“The whole idea with Bullo is to consider both and not to degrade the country, to look after it, to make it better than it was, to have more biodiversity than when you found it.
“You know, leave no animal behind.”
It is one of the few partnerships of its kind and the ambition is to create a model for other pastoral operations to apply.
The couple has reduced cattle numbers to 3,000 to assist with land rehabilitation.
Some grazing areas have been returned to native bush to increase wildlife, and wetlands are being restored.
Feral cattle have been mustered from remote parts of the property and fences built to control the impact of other feral animals’ destructive behaviour.
Future-proofing
Bullo’s managers, Joe and Catherine Atkins, agree that looking after the ecology, land and soil helps future-proof cattle operations.
“At the end of the day, [a] pastoral company can’t be run just with grass,” Mr Atkins said.
“You’ve got to be able to manage your country, manage your grasses, manage your soils, manage your waterways.
“Whether it is in a conservation area or pastoral area, wherever it is, we all need to work together to make it happen.
“And … if we can’t work together, it’s going to be a very long road.”
Mr Atkins said the division between conservation and cattle was disappearing.
“From my experience in the years of living up here, I think there always has been that sort of a division between conservation, pastoral,” he said.
“It’s all about working as a team and working together and understanding each other’s views and values.”
Involving the ecologists
Wildlife conservancy ecologists and land managers have taken inventory surveys since 2018, monitoring the property’s ecological health and running improvement programs.
“The main focus of programs has always been targeting three main threats: fire management, feral animal management and weeds,” AWC senior ecologist Eridani Mulder said.
“The first thing we did was work on reinstating ecologically appropriate fire regimes. And the changes from that have been enormous.
“And then when coupled with an intensive program of removing really destructive large feral herbivores, things like donkeys, buffalo, pigs, particularly for really sensitive riparian and wetland areas, that’s made a huge difference,” Dr Mulder said.
Wildlife is flourishing
In recent weeks dozens of camera traps collecting images across the property have been dismantled.
While scientists need the data set to draw on, early anecdotal evidence shows efforts are paying off.
There are healthier spring systems, an increased diversity of vegetation, and flourishing wildlife.
“There’s over 200 bird species that have been confirmed here and a huge amount of small reptiles up in those gorges and rocky ranges,” Dr Mulder said.
“Most of the small mammals are still there, so those areas have a lot fewer feral cats, and so you get all these little rock rats and rock wallabies.
“Little carnivorous marsupials … echidnas, dingoes. There’s a huge range and it’s really encouraging to see that sort of intact fauna in those areas.”
Visitors ‘don’t want to laze by the pool’
There is also a lucrative tourism operation on Bullo River.
Guests can see a working cattle station without roughing it in a swag.
Despite the station boasting all the luxuries, Mr Atkins said most guests did not want to laze around the pool, but rather get out to see what was being done.
“It’s just trying to let people understand what we do as pastoralists and what we do for conservation and with our tourism side, which is something that … sort of promotes what we’re doing at the same time,” he said.
“And I guess you wouldn’t do it if you didn’t have pride and everything in what you do.”
Call for companies to embrace conservation
Mr Burt concedes the Bullo model is costly.
“There’s families out there with only one or two stations, and they can’t afford what we’re doing,” he said.
“But there’s lots of pastoral companies out there that probably arguably could, around the board table, make a decision like engaging a reputable conservation organisation to look at their property, oversee their property from a conservation point of view and increase the biodiversity whilst they’re still doing what they’re doing.”
But he also believes there are cattle companies with a capacity to lean into conservation more.
“There’s a few out there that probably could do that, but I’m not here to tell anyone what to do,” Mr Burt said.
There are bigger dreams still at Bullo, injecting even more life into this Noah’s Ark-style cattle operation.
“We’re looking to have an area where those species which are no longer extant on the property, will [be] reintroduced,” Mr Burt said.
“So it’s a number of species, black-footed tree rats, northern quoll, hopefully things like that.
“That’s the next pathway in the conservation/guest experience. And don’t get me wrong … we’re doing it because we love it.”
A passion to protect this epic country is at the centre of it all.
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