Sydney - A wildlife corridor stretching 2,800 kilometres along Australia's east coast will be set up to allow species to find new habitats as global warming alters the continent's climate,
news reports said Saturday.
The idea is to persuade private landholders to release land so that national parks along the Great Eastern Ranges can be linked together.
"We have to create, protect and restore ecological corridors that will allow species to move and to find new areas of sanctuary," New South Wales state Environment Minister Bob Debus told The Sydney
Morning Herald.
Nearly two-thirds of the state's endangered species are found along the path of the proposed wildlife corridor, Debus said. The worry is that without the ability to move there will be species
stranded as Australia's south-east corner becomes hotter and drier.
Debus said the plan was "to do what we can in this country to avoid the threat of mass global-warming-induced extinction."
A farming family near Canberra, the national capital, has come forward as the first to offer land for sale for the wildlife corridor. The organizer of the corridor is the Australian Bush
Heritage Fund, which buys land it considers to be important for conservation.
