Faure Island becomes a home for threatened species

The purchase of Faure Island provided a unique opportunity to establish a 6,000-hectare ‘Island Ark’ for threatened mammals. In partnership with the Western Australian Government, AWC undertook a feral cat and feral herbivore eradication program and Faure Island became the third largest island in the world on which these introduced species had been eradicated.

AWC has since successfully established self-sustaining populations of five locally extinct mammal species on the island. Faure Island is part of the Shark Bay World Heritage Area,  one of only 16 natural sites in Australia listed as being of outstanding universal value.

Paruna Wildlife Sanctuary is established and Professor Tim Flannery joins AWC

The success of Karakamia inspired Martin to look for more land and he began buying properties along the southern slopes of the Avon Valley in the Perth hills.

By 1998 he had consolidated these purchases to establish Paruna Wildlife Sanctuary. At 2,500 hectares, Paruna represented a sizeable leap in scale from Karakamia, and formed a crucial wildlife corridor between the Walyunga and Avon Valley National Parks. This established a combined protected area of approximately 19,500 hectares and demonstrated that private sanctuaries could compliment the public national park system.

In 1998 Paruna was offically opened by Professor Tim Flannery, after which he joined Martin Copley AM, Ross Ledger AM and Dr Barry Wilson on the AWC Board. Together, Tim and Barry brought a science focus to the core activities of the organisation.

Conserving land to halt the decline of Australia’s wildlife

In early 1991, Martin Copley established AWC’s first sanctuary, Karakamia, in the Perth Hills. Martin’s ‘lightbulb moment’ – that he could take action to halt Australia’s extinction crisis and reverse the decline of native wildlife – was partly inspired by the work of environmentalist John Wamsley. Martin wanted to start a sanctuary free of feral predators in Western Australia where native mammals could once again flourish, similar to Wamsley’s Warrawong Sanctuary in South Australia.

Even at this early stage, Martin had a vision of a new, non-profit model for conservation – a model that could lead the way in reversing the decline of Australia’s species. Karakamia was the first private nature reserve in Western Australia, marking the beginning of an expanding contribution by the private sector to conservation in the state. Work began almost immediately on the construction of AWC’s first feral predator-proof fence.