Temperate grasslands are home to diverse flora and fauna but they are in decline because of land clearing and our lack of concern

For most people, the south-eastern grasslands look like wastelands, according to the environmental psychologist Kathryn Williams from the University of Melbourne.

“They see an empty paddock that’s potential for a car park or a shopping centre or a housing development,” she says.

“They don’t look at it and think, ‘There’s nature.’ “They see the absence of things.”

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Yet Australia’s temperate grasslands are home to diverse flora and fauna including rare orchids, legless lizards, the growling grass frog and the endangered plains-wanderer. They are crucial habitat for numerous species of insects, reptiles and birds, and were once home to many of our now extinct or endangered mammals.

But they are also one of our most critically endangered ecosystems, with less than 1% of them still in decent condition. According to a study conducted in western Victoria, the region’s 880 hectares of remaining grassland declined by 29% between 1984 and 2004.

Our lack of appreciation for this habitat is proving fatal, says Williams. “You get a really high occurrence of dumping of rubbish, people creating goat-tracks, not noticing that it is precious.” Grasslands are disappearing beneath the wake of urban expansion and thanks to a lack of concern.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Australia’s temperate grasslands are critical habitat for numerous species including the endangered plains-wanderer. Photograph: Michael Portway, Remember The Wild/The Guardian

There are other reasons for its degradation – some of them historical. For more than 50,000 years, Indigenous Australians have relied on these grasslands for food and medicine. They worked with fire to routinely burn small patches of the landscape in order to promote new growth and attract prey species like kangaroos.

Everything changed with the arrival of Europeans. In a matter of decades, pastoralists were grazing sheep on native grasses from the Riverina in New South Wales to Victoria’s volcanic plains, and west to Adelaide. They quickly became degraded and in recent decades have suffered heavily from the planting of non-native pastures and crops, changes in fire regimes and the introduction of invasive weeds.

Now one of the biggest threats facing remaining grasslands is the momentous outward growth of cities like Melbourne. Housing estates and infrastructure are popping up wherever there appears to be free space.

Williams has a number of theories about why these areas don’t engender more concern. According to evolutionary psychology, humans instinctively prefer habitats with flowering plants, fruiting trees and obvious shelters because they indicate productivity and safety.

Another theory suggests that the human brain prefers landscapes with clear landmarks because it is constantly searching for patterns in the world around it. For the average Australian, a vast grassy plain is just a sea of grass: there are no patterns to be discerned, nothing to orient oneself with.

“Every theory predicts no one will like grasslands,” says Williams. “They’re the theoretical underdog … No one chains themselves to a bulldozer that’s about to plough a grassland.”

However, there is a critical reason why these ecosystems need to be protected – they could turn out to be our salvation in the face of climate change.

As the climate in southern Australia changes, droughts are predicted to become more frequent. Native grasses will be better able to cope with a hotter, drier Australia than introduced pastures from the northern hemisphere. “The beauty of grasslands is in part to do with their resilience. You’ve got this system which is really vulnerable to these big threats, like clearing, but also has this toughness and persistence,” says Williams.

She believes some farmers could see the value of native grasses as a durable source of food for sheep and cattle, particularly in drought periods. “They were working in a drought context and thinking about how to make their businesses more resilient and more sustainable in the long term.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Harvesting kangaroo grass may be the answer for farmers in our changing climate. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons

The dry land sheep farmers Andrew and Faye Bali from the northern plains of Victoria agree that native grasses have an important role to play moving forward. “We rely on it every year,” says Andrew of the native grasslands that occupy around 60% of their farming property.

“It actually complements our other part of the farm, both bits working together,” he says, believing that having both native grasslands and lucerne gives them the best of both worlds, with the different pastures accounting for the other’s failings.

“It bounces back really quickly when we do get rain,” says Faye. “At some point there will have to be reckoning I suppose… If droughts continue, farmers can’t keep going the way that they have and expect to make an income. Which is where the grasslands might come into their own.”

They’re not the only ones who see a role for native grasslands in the future. Bruce Pascoe, the author of Dark Emu, has long championed the potential benefits of harvesting indigenous flora like kangaroo grass. “They are not as productive as wheat per acre, but the on-costs are nil, they are Australian grasses that grow in drought, tolerate poor nutrition, with no fertilisers or pesticides,” Pascoe says.

As Australia’s changing climate makes it increasingly difficult to keep non-native crops and pastures well-watered, the tough, time-tested grasslands of our ancient continent may be a much-needed lifeline.