A Wetlands Centre officer says Perth’s recent rainfall is a relief for native ecosystems but Western Australia needs to focus on more sustainable water sources as climate change worsens.

The Wetlands Centre Cockburn administration and facilities officer Jaki Richardson says native flora and fauna has been impacted by droughts to a point where current water level improvements cannot regenerate losses.

“We’ve lost two significant banksias here and countless other trees through the reserve all the way through and there’s nothing we can do about that,” she says.

“I suspect that anything that hasn’t died already is going to survive, and the rain will help now and it will maintain us for now, but it’s too late for a significant number of plants.”

Ms Richardson says she has observed an unusually harsh amount of banksia loss.

“Banksia do not have a long life, they do cycle but not just old trees are dying. Young trees that should be at their prime are withering and we’ve never seen a tree loss like this, not in my time,” she says.

Ms Richardson says late rainfall is not the only reason for arid conditions.

“It’s just that it’s been so dry for so long, the whole of autumn was dry and we normally have productive summer storms but we just haven’t had that pattern this year, and in fact all last year,” she says.

“Natural water flow through Bibra Lake is being blocked for development back behind Murdoch.

“City of Cockburn and Murdoch University are trying to remedy that by filtering, and eventually the creek will run through but lakes in this system have been dried up by being held up at the back of suburbia.”

Ms Richardson says Western Australia needs to move to more sustainable practices to preserve water and protect native ecosystems.

“We have to move to renewables, we have to maintain water movement, we can’t block for developments,” she says.

“I absolutely accept we have to expand but we need to look at expanding more intense suburban development rather than building new suburbs across waterways.

“The fact is, while we keep promoting coal and gas we’re going to have ever increasing climate change and it’s just going to get worse and more turtles and more banksias will die.”

The Wetlands Centre Cockburn general manager Ana Terrazas says heavy rainfall will have its own difficulties after the dry season.

“We will see in the next couple of days a lot of old dirt and rubbish that has been laid out all this summer coming into the lakes and the river which will make things worse,” she says.

Ms Terrazas says people living in suburbs should adopt native plants into their gardens to preserve water.

“People need to think about changing to native plants that need less water so they will not be wasting it and we will have more for native reserves,” she says.

“Climate change is where it is and there’s no going back, we’ve seen we can’t depend on rainfall, so we need to find more ways to preserve water for our native wetlands and wildlife.”

Curtin University School of Molecular and Life Sciences research fellow Brenton Von Takach says drought effects can best be seen in the south-west region of WA.

“This area is particularly impacted by a drying climate and we’ve seen lot of species becoming less common or even going regionally extinct,” he says.

“It’s not a surprising impact of a changing climate, but it is worrying. 

“Certain ecosystems and species that depend on a high level of rainfall are quite semi-arid adapted so they’ve adapted to this really dry summer but getting seven months without rainfall is pretty extreme.”

Dr Von Takach says many species of frogs are at risk of extinction if dry weather persists.

“Similar to the turtles that we’ve seen dying, there’s many species of frogs in southwest WA that are used to having permanent water available to them so they are being heavily impacted by these kinds of drying events that are a result of climate change,” he says.

“These species could potentially go extinct soon and we need to be thinking about this when managing wildlife in the future.” 

Applewood Orchard owner Vic Grozotis of Manjimup says while rainfall has been a comfort he is still worried about water reserves.

“It’s certainly a big relief but the real concern is the winter going forward as horticulturalists,” he says.

“This rainfall takes the pressure off and it’s been a challenge over the last season and it has allowed me to have a break but I’m not gonna count my chickens before they’re hatched though.

“The biggest concern to me as an irrigation farmer is the winter going forward and if we do not get at least an average winter rainfall we could be at a loss.”

Mr Grozotis says he observed livestock farmers facing concerning challenges over summer as well.

“I have friends who are cattle farmers and sheep farmers, and for them this drought has had a severe impact,” he says.

“Many of them have run out of feed for their stock and some have run out of water and are actually carting water in.

“They’re also finding livestock stuck in the mud of empty drying dams which is a big concern for them.”

Mr Grozotis says he worries Western Australian consumers do not understand the full impact droughts will have.

“Consumers really do not appreciate the impact this dry weather has on food supply and on fresh food supply in the state,” he says.

“This changing climate is going to create a lot more different issues for farmers if it continues on this trajectory.”