By Mario Xuereb
EFFORTS to save a rare orchid indigenous to Sunshine received a top conservation award last week.
The project, Back from the Brink: Saving Victoria’s Threatened Orchids, won the Banksia land and biodiversity award.
In 1996, a group of public institutions and organisations – including Victoria University (VU) – teamed up to save the threatened Sunshine diuris orchid and other native Victorian species.
After years of research into the orchid’s growth cycle, the numbers of Sunshine diuris have grown both in the wild and in the laboratory.
The award was presented by renowned primatologist Dr Jane Goodall.
VU’s Wendy Probert said the award was a great result for the group of organisations involved.
“It’s really wonderful to think this important award is being shared by such a diverse range of groups and organisations working together rather than individually,” she said.
Groups have tried to save the Sunshine diuris from extinction for more than half a century. By the mid-1990s only about five plants survived in the wild.
The Back from the Brink project introduced about 700 laboratory-raised plants into the wild last year, with 120 flowering in spring.
Eleven wild orchid species have become extinct since white settlement in Victoria, with another 197 now endangered.
