Peatland protection the focus of major collaborative effort

Zoologist Tim Gamblin brings warmth, experience and a deep appreciation of nature to this story of the Empodisma peatlands, which stretch from Cape Naturaliste to east of Albany. He is one of many scientists, land managers, Aboriginal Elders and community members involved in the PEAT Southwest Project, a collaborative effort focused on building understanding and protection of the peatland ecosystems of southwestern Australia.

August 2026

Justine and I moved from Fremantle to Walpole in 2009 so our kids could grow up in the bush. Most visitors know Walpole as the “Tingle Town” whose living endemic relics — the three iconic species of tingle trees — are survivors from a wetter era. The wild beaches, rivers, inlets and karri also make Walpole a special tourist spot. What I didn’t expect was how unique, fragile and overlooked the peatlands are in comparison. Far less visibly majestic, they are subtly just as impressive.

I made friends with locals — mostly members of the Walpole Nornalup National Parks Association and former staff of the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) — who’d lived there a long time, and they started taking me into the Walpole Wilderness area. They showed me some of the best peats in the southwest, and we began finding new ones. I was keen to visit these peats as a zoologist with an interest in frogs and quokkas. Having worked across WA and the Northern Territory, I’d seen many different ecosystems but never a peatland.

Standing in a remote peat feels like stepping into another realm. Even more so when you’re crawling beneath tea tree and sedges in the dark peat channels, looking at plants and evidence of fauna and feeling much like a hobbit. 

If you’ve been on Country around Walpole and across to Albany, or in the broader, wetter southwest of Western Australia (WA), there’s a good chance you have seen peat without realising it. These areas often look like swampy flats, sedgelands or permanently damp creek lines with dense rushes. You may be a landholder with a low-lying, soggy paddock somewhere on your property that stays wet long after the rains. There’s a chance you’re sitting on something of significant biological and historical value. It might be peat, and in WA that’s considered special — my appreciation of just how special continues to grow.

So what is peat?

Most people associate peat with European landscapes rather than our own backyards. The classic ancient, deep European peats (several metres deep and up to 10,000 years old) are dominated by moss species and are highly acidic. These conditions can preserve tissue and have produced the famous ‘bog people’ archaeological discoveries, such as the well-preserved Tollund Man from the other Denmark. 

Essentially, peat is an organic soil made almost entirely of partially decomposed plant material that acts like a giant sponge, holding water in the landscape. Over thousands of years, dead plant material builds up in waterlogged, low-oxygen environments, layer by layer and faster than it can fully rot away. It forms into a dense, spongy, dark brown material underfoot.

In a normal paddock, dead leaves and roots break down quickly and return to the soil. What you’re walking on in that soggy patch in the paddock, or in a natural environment, might have taken thousands of years to form. Peatlands are permanently or seasonally wet environments, typically covered in sedges, rushes or low shrubs, and may be associated with slow-flowing water. A peatland may look dry on the surface during summer, but the peat underneath often remains moist if the water table has not dropped too far.

There are several different types of southwest peat, and researchers are still working to categorise them all. However, there is a distinct form that has caused great interest among scientists in WA. These are the Empodisma peatlands. They occur from Cape Naturaliste to east of Albany, on both state-managed and private land. Peatland researchers from Edith Cowan University and the University of Western Australia, along with local conservationists, still don’t know exactly where all these patches of peatlands are, but predictive mapping and ongoing surveys are helping to find more of them. Most of the best known and studied Empodisma peats are in the northern Walpole to Bow Bridge region. 

In WA, Empodisma peatlands are dominated by and structured around a rush-like plant called Empodisma gracillimum, a lime green, wiry mass with a dense root system that can hold up to 15 times its dry weight in water, hence the sponginess. This species of Empodisma occurs only in southwestern Australia.

Importantly, these Empodisma peatlands are no longer viewed simply as isolated swamps or wet paddock corners. They are now recognised as Endangered in southwestern Australia because many have been damaged or lost.

In 2023, the Australian Government officially listed the Empodisma peatlands of southwestern Australia as an Endangered Threatened Ecological Community (TEC) under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). The TEC refers to a community of native plants, animals and other organisms and includes the whole living system of peat soils, vegetation, water, fungi, microbes, frogs, birds and other fauna. Being a “listed” TEC means there is evidence that a substantial proportion of WA’s Empodisma peatlands have been or are expected to be lost and degraded; once they are lost, they are extraordinarily difficult to recover.

What lives in these peats?

Peatlands may include threatened and endemic species of the wetter southwest, such as the sedge Reedia spathacea, the carnivorous Albany pitcher plant Cephalotus follicularis and the strikingly coloured sunset frog Spicospina flammocaerulea, as well as four Engaewa species of small burrowing crayfish. They also support more common species, such as Warren River cedar (watti), teatree, melaleuca, and the rattling froglet Crinia glauerti.

A big highlight of my peat experiences was doing nocturnal sunset frog call surveys with DBCA in the 2010s. We not only heard their distinctive “dd-duk-duk”, but we also spotted one with our head torches. That striking blue and orange patterning is unforgettable.

I also never tire of seeing the Albany pitcher plant. It’s an amazing looking plant with colours ranging from lime green to maroon and black — a Gondwanan relic with a toothed rim, leaf lid and cup. Essentially a pit trap, it uses nectar to attract insects, which then slip into the cup. They can’t walk against the backward-facing ‘hairs’ and are digested. It has an association with a flightless fly whose larvae live inside the plant’s pitchers and feed on trapped insects.

The peatlands hold other life too. There are runnels through sedges where quenda Isoodon fusciventer and quokkas Setonix brachyurus travel, and orchids with restricted ranges, including the peat helmet orchid Corysanthes autumnalis found near Walpole in 2018 by local farmer and conservationist Dr David Edmonds. Who knows what else is still waiting to be noticed?

Collaborative efforts

In what is perhaps one of the most intensive transdisciplinary efforts of its kind in Australia, a team of researchers is now working with community groups, Noongar Elders and land managers to better understand and protect southwest peatlands through the PEAT Southwest Project, supported by The Ian Potter Foundation and Lotterywest.

It’s important to recognise the role local people played in laying the groundwork for this ambitious project, alongside the many external contributors. Building on Dr Pierre Horwitz’s 1993-1994 survey of wetlands, including peatlands, in the Walpole area, our little group of locals decided to get more serious about peat from about 2015. We wanted to map where the peats were, find more, and record their condition. Finding them is not as easy as it seems. They’re not always low in the landscape; they can be perched. Ground truthing where we predicted they might be is also really time consuming, but critical. It quickly became clear to us that these peats were under growing pressure.

We were fortunate to have expertise among Walpole’s local naturalists in fields including botany, zoology, mycology, palaeoecology, geology and eco-art, along with many highly knowledgeable citizen scientists. Some had been watching these peats for years, and that experience mattered. They were all living in Walpole, wanting to be immersed in nature.

My sense is the PEAT Project began as a grassroots exercise: a bunch of friends planning over coffee. They kept agitating until something bigger and better supported emerged. The first goal was to get the Empodisma peatlands listed as threatened and to attract funding for research, which involved major external effort too, including a commissioned expert report.

Momentum was growing for the acknowledgement of peats as special, but I believe the key turning point was when Dr Nicki Mitchell, a UWA conservation biologist whose family regularly holidayed in north Walpole, took an interest (she even met her future husband in one of the peatlands while looking for sunset frogs in 1997). Nicki started taking the peat story from Walpole to Perth and to national stakeholders through her academic and government contacts.

In much the same way, the highly successful annual Walpole Wilderness BioBlitz also grew from the grassroots through the Walpole Nornalup National Parks Association. These are good examples of small groups having a big impact by being focused, patient and passionate. 

Why should we all care?

For landholders, peatlands can sometimes seem like awkward wet patches that are difficult to use productively. But healthy peatlands provide important benefits to farms and the wider landscape. In short, they help regulate water flow, filter water, reduce erosion, store carbon and provide habitat and drought refuges for wildlife. In many cases they may also help maintain more reliable base flows into creeks and wetlands downstream.

Here’s a closer look at some of those benefits:

Water regulation: Peatlands act as natural sponges, soaking up heavy rain and slowly releasing water during dry periods. For farmers on the south coast, that means a healthy peatland upstream might help buffer a property against both flood and drought.

Carbon storage: Globally, peatlands lock up enormous amounts of carbon, and peat soils can store more carbon per hectare than almost any other ecosystem, including forests. A healthy peatland keeps that carbon in the ground. A damaged one releases carbon, mainly in the form of carbon dioxide, contributing to global warming.

Water quality: Peatlands filter water naturally, trapping sediment and nutrients before they reach streams and estuaries. Healthy peat means cleaner water downstream, which is good for stock, good for neighbours and good for the coastal fisheries. It’s also good for native freshwater species that live in local waterways.

Biodiversity protection: These wetlands provide important habitat for species such as rare orchids, the Albany pitcher plant, the sedge Reedia, quokkas and the sunset frog. Some of these species are restricted to peat-based wetlands and occur nowhere else in the world, while others use them as habitat or refuge during dry periods.

Peatlands under stress

The biggest pressures on Empodisma peatlands on the south coast include high-severity or repeated fires, altered water flow, feral pigs, a drying climate and, in some areas, weed invasion. Seeing the effects of pig and fire damage firsthand is devastating.

Pigs are particularly destructive to peatlands, often gaining access where tracks, fire or other disturbances have already opened up the vegetation. They wallow in the wet soil, and root through the peat, breaking up the Empodisma mat and exposing the soil to drying and erosion. Once the water regime changes or the surface is broken up, recovery is extremely slow, if it happens at all. Fortunately, DBCA has a feral pig management project in place, but the scale and remoteness of affected areas make management challenging.

A drying climate is also making things harder. Reduced rainfall means some peatlands that were once permanently wet are drying out seasonally, making them increasingly susceptible to fire. Dry peat can burn, sometimes smouldering underground for weeks or months, or until good winter rains. A peat fire has the potential to destroy a peatland that developed over thousands of years, leaving charred pedestals of peat rising out of an ash bed. Recovery can be extremely slow, if it occurs at all, and once peat dries out it is more open to oxygen which speeds the process of decomposition.

Protecting peats on private property

Justine and I eventually moved to Denmark so the kids could attend high school, but I keep returning to enjoy the beauty of the area and attend the annual Walpole Wilderness BioBlitz. Recently, I’ve returned to peat in a more formal role. My work with the Wilson Inlet Catchment Committee is part of a South Coast Natural Resource Management (SCNRM) peat initiative under the Lotterywest-supported PEAT Southwest Project.

In 2026 and into 2027, Emma Sommerville and Bronte Van Helden from SCNRM and I will assist landholders with funding to help manage some of the stresses to peatlands on private property. In some respects, threats such as fire and feral pigs can be managed more effectively on private land, and each peat can be managed according to its needs.

That boggy corner may seem like a problem area in a paddock, but it could be an ancient and irreplaceable part of the landscape.

THANKS to Tim Gamblin, Justine Gamblin, Emeritus Professor Pierre Horwitz, Professor Nicki Mitchell, Holly Winkle, Dr David Edmonds, Emma Sommerville and the photographers. Editorial input by Gondwana Link’s Marg Robertson and Keith Bradby. This story is also available in the August 2026 edition of the Southerly Magazine.   

The PEAT Southwest project is co-led by The University of Western Australia and Edith Cowan University; guided by Noongar Elders; delivered in partnership with South Coast NRM, South West NRM, the Walpole-Nornalup National Parks Association, Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Undalup Association, the Western Australian Museum and Biologic Environmental; and supported by The Ian Potter Foundation and Lotterywest. Visit PEAT Southwest to learn more about the project.

Further information

Professor Pierre Horwitz offers a fascinating personal insight into his 1993-1994 survey of wetlands, including peatlands, in the Walpole area and describes the remarkable moment he found the sunset frog. Read the story here.

Walpole’s Dr Elizabeth Edmonds also shares unique insights into her palaecological research in local peatlands and how it inspired her creation of ‘peat paint’ for her artworks: Peat, Fossils, Palaeohistory + Art | Heartland Journeys

Find out about the Walpole-Nornalup National Parks Association – a local community conservation group – and the annual Walpole Wilderness Bioblitz.