A group of West Australian scientists are campaigning to turn “the poorest soils in the world” into a Unesco world heritage area.

The scientists, led by a group of University of Western Australia researchers who make up the Kwongan Foundation, have spent the past year developing an application to get international protection for an area known as the Kwongan or West Australian sandplains, which stretches from Shark Bay, 630km north of Perth, to Esperance on the south coast.

Former Gardening Australia host Peter Cundell is among the foundation’s patrons.

Professor Hans Lambers, a plant biologist with the University of Western Australia, said the world heritage application would include all national parks and reserves in the area – which make up about 20% of the total Kwongan.

If the bid is successful, the resulting world heritage area would be more than twice the size of the Tasmanian wilderness world heritage area.

The group has been using social media to garner popular support for the idea – its Facebook page had almost 2,300 likes on Monday – and plans to present an early draft of the application to state environment minister, Albert Jacob, next month.

Lambers said the Kwongan needed to be recognised and protected as one of the richest areas on the planet for plant life.

“In an area the size of England we have 8,000 higher plant species here,” he said. Higher plants mean excluding organisms like algae or moss.

“In the same area in England we have 1,500. The thing is, most of the 8,000 species here are endemic, compared to the 1,500 in England that are mostly seen in neighbouring areas too.”

The bid would hang off three National Parks – the Stirling Range National Park, Lesueur National Park and the Fitzgerald River National Park – but Lambers said the hyper-local nature of some of the endemic species meant smaller reserves should also be included.

The secret to the area’s ecological richness lies in its abysmally poor soils, which Lambers said forces plants to try “lots of innovative little things” to survive.

“These are the crappiest soils you can imagine, the poorest soils in the world, and the poorer the soils get, the richer the diversity,” he said.

The area is home to native orchids and a wide variety of Proteaceae such as banksias and grevilleas, as well as a disproportionately large number of carnivorous plants, “because if you grow in such poor soil, you try every trick under the sun to get nutrients”.

But Lambers acknowledged that its ecological significance was not immediately recognised by those who live nearby.

“Here people think it’s just a bit of scrub and you can do what you like with it,” he said.

“If you have that Unesco title there, I think people will think before they say, ‘Oh, this is just a bit of useless crap.’”

Lambers said the target area included parts of the wheatbelt, but said any existing farmland – plus an acceptable buffer – would be excised from the world heritage bid.

However part of an area of unallocated crown land near Esperance, which the Shire of Esperance has proposed be converted to farmland, would be included.

Shire president Malcolm Heasman told Guardian Australia in December that additional farmland was needed to allow younger farmers to establish themselves in the area and provide an economic boost.

But Lambers said the same poor soils responsible for the diverse ecology would mean financial ruin for farmers.

“No farmer will make any money out of that at all. Farmers in the area are really struggling, so to develop more farmland is even more daft,” he said.

Lambers said the success of the bid would depend on support from the state and federal government.

“It is the best way to protect these areas and to create an economic boost, in the form of tourism,” he said. “It cannot proceed without government support.”

The environment minister has been contacted for comment.