Climate change is not just a problem for the future. It is impacting us every day, everywhere.”
– Vandana Shiva
Restoration at climate scale isn’t just possible. It’s already happening.
Working in genuine partnership with the Pira-Kata Aboriginal community on the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia’s Central Desert, For the Love of Wildlife (FLOW) and Curtin University’s Soil and Landscape Science Laboratory are using lightweight, solar-powered, autonomous rover to restore degraded arid land. By mimicking the burrowing behaviour of Australia’s missing marsupials, we are kickstarting the ecological recovery of land that has been silent for centuries. Year One is complete. Country is responding.
When Country Heals, Everything Heals
The problem: Australia’s missing ecosystem engineers
For thousands of years, millions of native foraging marsupials kept Australia’s arid lands healthy. Bilbies, bandicoots, bettongs and others turned over nearly four tonnes of soil per animal each year. Their burrowing created countless tiny pits that captured rain, cradled seeds and allowed life to flourish. They were, in the truest sense, engineers of Country.
In the past two hundred years, their habitat has been destroyed. Overstocking, land clearing and invasive species have pushed them to the edge of extinction. With them went the ecological processes that sustained the desert. More than 52 million hectares of Australia are now degraded, an area the size of Spain. The nation has lost nearly half its forest cover and carries the world’s worst mammal extinction rate.
The land remembers what it needs. We just have to listen.
A Solution: Enter the Rover
Our autonomous, solar-powered rover is lightweight, low-cost and precise. It mimics the work of missing marsupials by digging shallow, angled holes into the hardened crust of degraded land, replicating the natural process of bioturbation that once kept these landscapes alive.
Each micropit captures rainfall, cradles seeds, collects leaf litter and aerates the soil allowing life to follow.
This is not just technology. It is biomimicry guided by Traditional Knowledge. It is science that proves what the Pira-Kata people have always known: when natural processes are allowed to do their work, Country knows how to heal itself.
In Year One, We Got Our Hands in the Dirt… Literally
The first year of Project PanGaia, we established trial sites, dug thousands of micropits and gathered hundreds of baseline soil samples that delivered results that exceeded expectations:
- Leaf litter began gathering in micropits within weeks of the first site visit
- Small creatures were observed burrowing into newly aerated soil
- Trail cameras captured a healthy bilby near one of the trial sites, a species not reliably recorded in this area for nearly fifty years
- Eight trial sites were successfully established
- The Pira-Kata community returned to Country, some for the first time in decades
- Two-way science methodology successfully implemented and validated with Curtin University
The township has a heartbeat again.”
– Elder Preston Thomas
The Science Is Sound and Beautiful
This approach is validated by decades of global research. From Africa’s Zai pits to China’s fish-scale pits and the SMILES half-moon pits of the Sahel, strategic soil disruption has proven it can restore even the most degraded landscapes. What makes Project PanGaia different is what sits at the centre of it.
Indigenous leadership is not an add-on. It is the methodology.
This is genuine two-way science. The Pira-Kata community, guided by Elder Preston Thomas and Custodian Matt Thomas, co-design the research, make decisions on Country and hold ultimate authority over cultural protocols and land management. Curtin University’s Soil and Landscape Science Laboratory provides rigorous scientific validation and soil health measurement.
When Indigenous peoples lead restoration on Country, the research is richer, the results are more durable and the land responds more fully. This is not our opinion. It is what Year One showed us.
Indigenous leadership + Traditional Knowledge + leading soil science + autonomous technology = addressing biodiversity loss and climate change simultaneously
This is a Climate Solution
The Ngaanyatjarra Lands span 250,000 square kilometres, an area the size of the United Kingdom. At this scale, restoration is not a conservation project. It is a climate response.
Healthy native grasses sequester carbon rapidly, in some ecosystems at rates comparable to or exceeding forest systems and in soils that are far more resilient to fire. They regulate water cycles, reduce fire severity, rebuild biodiversity and stabilise soil that would otherwise release carbon back into the atmosphere.
From Kanpa to the World
Kanpa is one of the most remote, most beautiful and most often overlooked places in Western Australia. Accessible after a two-day drive from Perth, the last half on unsealed roads, it sits in the heart of the Gibson Desert, home of the Pira-Kata Aboriginal community and the starting point of Project PanGaia.
It is also the place where a bilby crossed in front of a trail camera and reminded our team and the custodians of what they were working toward.
How We Measure Success
We will know Project PanGaia has succeeded when:
- Native grasses and small marsupials return to Country in sufficient numbers that the rover becomes obsolete because nature has taken over.
- Pira-Kata Aboriginal field technicians employed by the project lead landscape-scale restoration across Country, passing knowledge from generation to generation and to other communities.
- Soil health data validated by Curtin University’s Soil and Landscape Science Laboratory provides the scientific foundation to scale this methodology across Australia and internationally.
- Healthy Country is supporting healthy community; cultural continuity, economic opportunity and deepening connection to land.
- A blueprint exists that other Indigenous communities can adapt, proving that restoration at climate scale is not only possible, it is already happening.
From Ancient Songlines to High-Tech Rovers. Regenerating Country for Generations to Come.
Project PanGaia is demonstrating what becomes possible when we replace what has been lost, restore what matters and centre the knowledge that has sustained this land for thousands of years.
For the Love of Wildlife is a proud partner of the Global Rewilding Alliance. Together with the Pira-Kata community, Curtin University and supporters who believe Country can heal, we are proving that restoration at climate scale is not a distant goal; it is already happening.
The land is a reflection of its people, and the people are a reflection of the land. If the land is sick, then the people are sick.”
– Victor Steffensen, Tagalaka filmmaker, writer, musician, co-founder of the Firesticks Alliance
Every micropit is an act of faith. A small wound in the earth that says: we believe you can come back. And Country is responding – quietly, persistently, beautifully. Wildlife knows the answers; you just have to listen. We have been listening to Country, to the Pira-Kata community, to the ancient knowledge that has sustained this land for sixty thousand years. What we are doing in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands today could become the blueprint for restoring degraded land across Australia and around the world. Be part of that. The rover is turning soil. The science is sound. The community is home. All we need now is you.
Wildlife knows the answers. You just have to listen.”
– Elder Preston Thomas
Why Rewilding and Why Now
Rewilding arid Australia is a holistic and collaborative endeavour. By combining Traditional Knowledge, scientific research, community engagement and sustainable practices, we can begin to restore this vast, unique ecosystem. Our pioneering approach combines new tools and technologies with nature-based solutions and Indigenous stewardship principles to help degraded Country flourish again.
Our Strategy
Our ambitious rewilding strategy targets soil restoration using new tools and technologies, nature-based solutions and Indigenous stewardship principles. Our approach is designed to rehabilitate degraded lands at scale, halt biodiversity decline and promote healthy, self-sustaining ecosystems.
The nature-based dividends of our strategy – healthier soil and water supply and enhanced capacity to absorb damaging carbon – will support a flourishing environment, help tackle climate change and deliver opportunities for biodiversity stabilisation, cultural experiences and economic development for regional Australians.
Our Approach
Biomimicry is the practice of learning from and mimicking strategies found in nature to solve challenges. We are applying those principles to restore degraded land using technology to mimic the largely extinct marsupials of arid Australia.
Using solar-powered, lightweight, autonomous rovers to create soil pits is a crucial technique for allowing nutrients, plant litter, seeds and water to collect in the soil crust – providing a favourable environment for seedling germination and growth. This natural process, known as bioturbation, was historically carried out by millions of native Australian marsupials. Unfortunately, these marsupials have been severely diminished or entirely lost due to overstocking, habitat loss and increased predation by invasive species, including cats and foxes.
While manual techniques such as Zai pits (Sahel, Africa) and mechanical rangeland pitting (Middle East, Western and South Australia) have achieved significant results, they are too costly to implement at scale in remote Australian rangelands. Our low-cost, solar-powered rover makes restoration at climate scale achievable for the first time.
You can view the current project site on explorer.land and Restor.
Our Vision
Australia has a unique opportunity to be a global leader in rehabilitating degraded lands. Using automation to mimic the digging of largely extinct marsupials, micropitting in the areas where they once thrived, helps hydrate and aerate the soil as a first step in regeneration. The automation of the simplest ecological processes can have the most profound and positive effect on mitigating climate change while restoring Country.
Australia joined the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) in June 2021, committing alongside 60 countries to protecting at least 30% of land and sea by 2030. Australian Federal Member for Fremantle, Josh Wilson MP, spoke to Parliament on the Nature Repair Bill, calling for new, rigorous and urgent efforts to protect Australia’s remarkable but endangered biodiversity. Project PanGaia is our response to that call.
The Global Rewilding Alliance was formed in 2020, and For the Love of Wildlife is proudly an Australian partner.
Native grasses can thrive in degraded lands where trees might not grow as effectively. This makes them particularly valuable in rewilding and regeneration projects like PanGaia. Research in Ecological Applications: “Restoration of degraded grasslands: implications for carbon sequestration” found that restoration of grasslands on degraded lands can lead to substantial increases in soil carbon sequestration. A comparison of carbon sequestration rates in various ecosystems found that some grassland ecosystems sequester carbon at rates similar to or higher than forest ecosystems, particularly in terms of soil carbon. For example, a study in Environmental Research Letters: “Carbon sequestration rates in grassland ecosystems: a global review” noted that perennial grasslands can sequester between 0.5 to 3.0 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year in the soil, comparable to or exceeding many forest systems.
Track our progress
Key Partners
Supporting scientific reseach
Trophic rewilding can expand natural climate solutions
Bandicoot bioturbation contributing to ecosystem processes
Bioturbation by bandicoots (quenda)
Digging mammals; fungal composition and seedling growth
Echidna tackling climate change
Foraging activity by the southern bandicoot
Loss of digging mammals; deterioration of ecosystem function