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A ‘Backyard Blitz' on a global scale to restore degraded landscapes and give humankind hope for the future of our planet may seem like a massive, unrealistic ambition.

But it's exactly what the Director of Science at Kings Park and Botanic Garden is working towards, although he's concentrating on "one of the spotlight areas of the world" - Western Australia and its fantastic wealth of threatened biodiversity.

Since 1993 Professor Kingsley Dixon has led science and research at KPBG and has presided over the world's second biggest area of natural bushland associated with a capital city (the largest, by about a hectare, is Stanley Park in Vancouver). He is also a Permanent Visiting Professor in the School of Plant Biology where he completed his undergraduate degree and PhD. He said that his vision was to realise the translation of science into practice for conserving and restoring Western Australia's bushland.

So, when he's not carrying out research in a team of around 54 scientists, post-docs and research students, he spends his waking hours promoting the conservation of our State's unique species and ecosystems.

Professor Dixon talks to primary and secondary school kids and busloads of tourists. He takes University students under his wing, encouraging them as colleagues to help expand the sum of knowledge about native species. He meets farmers desperate to stop their properties turning into dustbowls. And he consults with mining companies who support research into the most effective ways of restoring minesites.

His ambition to showcase local flora and empower people into believing they can preserve it is helped by the fact that Kings Park is stunningly beautiful, attracting six million visitors every year and countless walkers, joggers and cyclists daily. It is also helped by the fact that in the 1960s it became the site of the world's first permanent botanic garden dedicated to indigenous plants.

But Professor Dixon hasn't let the park do most of the talking. He has led efforts to link the work of a botanic garden - education and conservation - with serious, adaptive science.

"Our original research was to address the great losses of species. We worked on plants that were rapidly declining, such as native orchids which are like the canary in the coalmine - harbingers of what's happening in the bush," he said.

"We developed innovative programs for rare and threatened species such as the scarlet snake bush and native foxglove. Two years ago we saved a plant that was on the brink of extinction in the Western Australian wheatbelt - a small plant so rare it never had a common name - Commersonia adenthalia. The very last plant known passed into extinction in the wild in 2009 but just prior, the team here at Kings Park through tissue culture and cryogenics were able to save it. You could say we're an intensive care unit for Western Australia's endangered species.

"We've had a lot of international firsts. For example, we did the first DNA fingerprinting of a rare and endangered plant. We were the first to cryogenically preserve a rare species.

"We were the first to discover the role of the signaling mechanisms in bushfire smoke for Australian plants - karrikins among them - that trigger germination not only in native plants but in plants around the world, predispose the emerging seedling to the post-fire landscape and aid in plant development.

"We've raised public awareness of pollinators and the importance of pollinators in restoration. We've spoken internationally of the need for seedbanks to be more than ‘stamp collections' of seeds if they are to take part in the billion-dollar business that global landscape restoration has become."

Professor Dixon said for decades people had sought quick-fix methods which had failed.

"Nothing is more important than painstaking science that can be transferred to end-users such as farmers and the resources sector. And we have to believe we can do it," he said.

For the boy who grew up on five acres of bushland in Bayswater - the son and grandson of avid plant collectors - who rejoiced in the seasonal changes in his domain, the ongoing environment challenges right outside his greenhouse door are being met with the same determination and optimism that have marked his career to date.

Published in UWA News , 16 May 2011