Garden for Wildlife is an extension to the Land For Wildlife programme in Alice Springs, targeting urban properties as opposed to rural blocks. Garden for Wildlife will be a voluntary, non-binding, nature conservation scheme.

The purpose of this initiative is to encourage, guide, support and recognise landholders taking a positive approach toward nature conservation on private land through planting or encouraging local native species. Garden for Wildlife will promote community participation in nature conservation and environmentally friendly practices. 

GfW facilitates property owners in creating wildlife habitats in their backyards, which will enhance existing corridors and develop new natural corridors for wildlife to safely move between Alice Springs town blocks.

GfW Members are provided with skills and benefits like:

• Effective rehabilitation techniques
• Identification of local flora and fauna
• Flora and fauna survey and monitoring techniques
• Effective weed management
• Soil conservation techniques, erosion prevention and control
• Water management techniques
• Property landscaping
• Feral and pet animal control
• Waste management
• Recognition for their wildlife conservation efforts
• Networks with like-minded landholders to share skills and experiences.

 Sturt's Desert Pea
© Alice Springs Desert Park

To become a GfW member, a registration fee of $10 is required. You will receive a registration pack, which will include a 15cm by 15cm sign to place on their letterbox or front fence, and will help spread the word about the scheme and its benefits. The pack will provide information to help get you started on developing a Garden for Wildlife.

Membership is web based, via the www.lowecol.com.au web site. Once you have copied the Registration Form into an email, filled it out and submitted it to lfw@lowecol.com.au, your application will be processed. An important link is the Vegetation Maps developed for the Alice Springs suburbs. This will provide members with knowledge of the vegetation that is locally native to their area. From here members can view the vegetation communities that may have occurred before housing development, which will guide individuals to what plant species can be planted in the particular soil type and area they live. The website map will be a very important tool for extending local vegetation areas and linking habitats together, creating wildlife safe corridors.

Few things are as rewarding as getting to know and understand the local wildlife of Alice Springs in your own backyard. Observing a Mistletoebird feeding on the flowering Mistletoe bush in your backyard or wandering through a native flowerbed and seeing a Long Nosed Water Dragon scurry behind a rock are just a few of the exciting wildlife that you may see in an Alice Springs Garden for Wildlife.

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Low Ecological Services