Amanda Dodd

The Striped Legless Lizard is a cute little critter that can steal your heart. So much so that for two decades a group of volunteers have worked tirelessly to protect, manage and restore key habitat for the species in Cairnlea, Victoria. Three years ago a group of these volunteers decided to become the formal land managers of three reserves to show that community based conservation can save species on public land. 

These groups the Friends of Iramoo and the Cairnlea Conservation Reserves Committee of Management  have drafted a 30 year vision for the restoration of these three reserves and the plants and animals that call them home. The Saving Six Grassland Species Project allows us to progress towards our 30 year vision faster than we could have imagined.  Best of all if we reach out target the Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning (DELWP) will match it dollar or dollar and we will have $24,000 to support our special six - how good is that. 

We want to build on the quality of our three urban grasslands so that they better support our six threatened species. Our project involves substantial weed control works, revegetation and the expansion of our seed orchard. But even better, our focus on the special six will provide the additional benefit of helping to restore the habitat for over 200 native plant and animal species.

How we will support our special six

Striped Legless Lizard & Tussock Skink 
Our two beautiful reptiles are tricky critters. They have been hanging out in weed infested grasslands dominated by Serrated Tussock and Chilean Needle Grass. We want to help them have a better home and support a wider range of plants and animals by controlling the weeds and replacing them with the beautiful native rusty red Kangaroo Grass and a splattering of glorious wildflowers. A greater diversity of wildflowers will create opportunities for insects to eat, breed and grow – providing lots of yummy insects for our lizards to munch on.   

Beautiful Striped Legless Lizard


Tenacious Tussock Skink

Spiny Rice Flower, Rye Beetle Grass and Murnong  
There are not many Spiny Rice Flowers and Rye Beetle Grasses left in our reserves and they are pretty lonely. The little Murnong has gone completely missing. We want to add these three species to our large in-field seed orchards. This will increase the amount of seed that can go into direct seeding  and reduce the impact of seed collection from wild populations.


Stunning Spiny Rice-flower


Magnificent Murnong


Ravishing Rye Beetle Grass

Button Wrinklewort
The beautiful Button Wrinklewort was locally extinct from our reserves. But we have brought it back. We want to use these funds to expand the population size of the Button Wrinklewort within the reserves from 300 individuals to 2000 individuals.  


Bouncing Button Wrinkleworts

We will spend the money in the following ways:


We will also contribute $24,000 in volunteer project management and labour time. That means for every $1 you donate there is $4 of value contributed to the local environment.

The project plan follows up on other similar successful projects we have achieved to date. 

We are concerned with the strength of the el Nino this year and the impact that has had on rainfall. 

Because our project will involve a substantial amount of planting works we will ensure that we have water carts and volunteer labour available to water the revegetation works during dry conditions.