Landscape ecology and natural resource management are both concerned with the distribution of species and resources in heterogenous (patchy) environments, and the factors that influence how they change through time. From its beginnings, landscape ecology has sought to provide knowledge to enhance the conservation and management of natural resources in areas such as forestry, agriculture, wildlife conservation and urban development. General principles, that describe how landscapes function, have widely permeated natural resource management. However, for practical application they must be translated in a particular management context with associated guidelines that specify what needs to be done (when, where and how) in a given context. While contributing much to natural resource management, the potential contribution of landscape ecology is yet to be fully realised because of limitations in formulating and testing context-specific guidelines, and the challenge of implementing them in the socio-economic context of real-world landscapes. An important pathway for progress involves greater collaboration in designing management actions as experiments and monitoring the outcomes over time. Further challenges include documenting threshold responses to management, predicting temporal change (including time lags), extrapolating outcomes across scales, and identifying landscape structures that confer resilience to environmental change. Many reciprocal benefits can be gained from closer integration of landscape ecology and natural resource management.

Understanding how ecosystems function at different spatial scales is essential for effective conservation and land management. Natural capital assessments — which evaluate the condition and value of ecosystems — are increasingly used to inform restoration and policy decisions. However, applying these assessments across large, diverse landscapes in Australia presents significant challenges.



This presentation examines methods for linking field-based ecological data with remote sensing and spatial modelling to measure natural capital at both site and landscape scales. The approach combines vegetation condition assessments, biodiversity indicators, and high-resolution imagery from drones and satellites. By comparing fine-scale plot data with broader-scale ecosystem mapping, we assess how results change when scaled up and identify potential information gaps.

Case studies from northern and south-eastern Australia highlight differences in vegetation structure, species diversity, and habitat condition. These examples show where small-scale data can miss broader trends, and where large-scale assessments risk overlooking local ecological variation.

The findings demonstrate that using flexible, multi-scale approaches can improve reporting for conservation planning, ecological accounting, and restoration monitoring. This work provides practical strategies for integrating detailed ecological information into national natural capital frameworks and supports more effective decision-making for Australia’s unique landscapes.

Wijeengadda Northern Quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus) is a culturally and ecologically important species that has suffered population declines and a reduction in range over the last century, exacerbated by fatal poisoning from the introduced cane toad (Rhinella marina).
There are few methods for managing cane toads in northern Australia, so efforts have focused on reducing their impacts on native predators susceptible to fatal poisoning by training them not to consume toads. This approach is Conditioned Taste Aversion (CTA). However, efficacy of this method in-situ and at landscape-scale for Northern Quoll is unclear.
Cane toads were detected on Dambeemangaddee Country (northwest Kimberley) in 2021, providing an opportunity to test effectiveness of CTA on wild populations of Wijeengadda Northern Quolls, with the aim of mitigating cane toad impacts. Sixty monitoring cameras were deployed across six sites (north, central and south) before (2022), and after (2024), cane toad arrival. Sites were paired, with one control and one treatment in each area (treatment = 3, control = 3). At treatment sites, 1,500 cane toad sausage CTA baits were aerially deployed within a 250-ha treatment polygon in 2022. Wijeengadda Northern Quolls were individually identified from camera images based on unique spot patterns to provide an indication of abundance.
Wijeengadda Northern Quoll abundance declined by 68% after cane toad arrival, across both treatment and control sites. Thus, CTA was considered not effective in this study. Limited replication and challenges predicting timing of cane toad arrival to sites weakens the strength of this conclusion but highlights the difficulty in applying this management approach to remote and vast landscapes. Relying on natural variation in toad-aversion, protecting intact habitat and ensuring connectivity between populations are key for long-term persistence of Northern Quoll in the Kimberley. These results have implications for the Pilbara, where cane toads are predicted to invade next.

Marna Banggara, meaning healthy, prosperous country in the language of the local Narungga People, aims to restore lost ecological processes and promote positive biodiversity outcomes across 140,000 ha of the southern Yorke Peninsula, by protecting extant fauna and flora and reintroducing functionally important native species. Operating across a living, working landscape the project faces many unique challenges and complexities as it balances the priorities of community and industry alongside ambitious conservation goals. Supported by the distinctive geography of the southern Yorke Peninsula, the construction of a ‘leaky’ predator management fence across the narrowest part of the peninsula works to slow migration and recolonisation of introduced predators (feral cats and foxes), reinforcing an intensive predator management program inside the project area. These initiatives, among others, have allowed for the successful reintroduction of the yalgi (brush tailed-bettong – Bettongia penicillata ogilbyi) to the peninsula for the first time in over 100 years.

Whilst many successful multi-species reintroduction programs focus on fox and cat free safe havens, increasingly scientific discussion has centred around the potential need for ‘beyond the fence’ solutions, ensuring populations of threatened species do not become too predator-naïve and lose traits needed to survive in the wild. In this context, Marna Banggara provides a unique opportunity to establish truly wild populations of threatened species, bolstered by long-term and ongoing introduced predator management. Here, we reflect on the current state of the yalgi population four years on from the first translocation, and how learnings from this and future reintroductions can inform restoration ecology principles in a complex working landscape.

Forested landscapes are impacted by anthropogenic and natural disturbances. For example, wildfire is becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change and timber harvesting supports human population growth. Such disturbances result in habitat fragmentation, reduced biodiversity and ecosystem services, and elevated risk of emerging diseases. Predicting the impact of these disturbances on threatened species is critical for developing effective conservation strategies. In this study, we linked a forest landscape simulation model with a spatially explicit population viability model predicting the impact of major disturbances on the persistence of koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) populations in the mid-north coast of New South Wales, Australia, over the next 50 years. Specifically, we simulated the impact of forest harvesting and wildfire on the succession and biomass of key vegetation communities using the software LANDIS. We linked the output of this forest dynamics model with an individual-based spatially explicit population viability analysis (PVA) model for koalas developed using the RangeShifter package in R. We modelled persistence of koala populations under a status quo scenario assuming current rates of wildfire and timber harvesting continue over the next 50 years. We then compared extinction risk under six alternative scenarios with varying rates of wildfire severity and timber harvesting. Our preliminary results demonstrate the importance of incorporating dynamic landscapes into PVA models when estimating long-term extinction risk of forest dependent species. The persistence of koala populations were sensitive to the extent and severity of disturbances across the landscape. High severity wildfire and extensive timber harvesting reduced the abundance of koalas over the 50-year time horizon. Our model is a flexible tool for exploring the likely impact of disturbances and management interventions for koalas that can inform policy decisions.