At first sight the newly-conceived Great Eastern Ranges Conservation Corridor – a continuous link of natural vegetation from the Alps in Victoria to Atherton in the Wet Tropics might seem like a gimmick. After all surely a corridor along the Great Eastern Ranges already largely exists? Isn’t the Great Divide mostly already in National Parks – rugged back country that no-one wanted? Yes and no…It is true that huge swathes of the proposed 2,800 kilometre corridor stretching from Victoria to the wet tropics are protected – the Australian Alps, the Blue Mountains and Wollemi are famous areas already given high levels of protection. But there are still several large gaps and hundreds if not thousands of small ones – think of the Great Western Highway, or the agricultural land behind Brisbane.

The Corridor is also not just about wildlife – in fact it would be worth doing even putting aside its biodiversity benefits because over three quarters of Australians depend on water that rises out of the Ranges. Such a massive continental corridor will be what economists and scientists refer to as a solution multiplier. In other words one decision will solve a lot of problems.

What is most important about the Great Eastern Ranges project is that it is one component of an idea whose time has come. The idea is connectivity. It is about creating the Princes Highway of conservation – an unbroken biodiversity superhighway that allows the movement of species throughout the nation. And just as my street and your street eventually finds its way into the Princes Highway so it must be with our wildlife. The time has come to facilitate the movement of our plants and animals, especially with the coming chaos of climate change. Connectivity’s greatest enemy is the tyranny of thousands of small bad decisions – approval to clear land separating one area from another. The decisions can be as small as cutting down just a few trees. The forest on my land has been severed from the forest on my neighbour’s property by the construction of a small orchard.

No road is of any use if it impassable and barriers to nature between Melbourne and the hinterland behind Cairns are immense – dams, freeways, suburbs, cities and farms.

Until now governments have created thousands of reserves but washed their hands of the question: Is the creation of a national park estate that looks like the terrestrial equivalent of the Indonesian archipelago really going to save biodiversity? And the answer is no. We cannot afford for conservation to happen only in national parks! And we certainly cannot afford for everywhere to be national parks. Instead we have to ensure that the land between the protected areas is managed in such a way that wildlife can move from one conservation area to another. How will this happen? Landcare projects, voluntary conservation agreements, incentives, voluntary acquisition of sensitive areas. The corridor will look more like a continental scale plait, a multitude of corridors that will bypass those who do not wish to be involved. It will need big picture management from all levels of government. But it will also be about individuals turning back the tide of those thousands of small decisions. The Alps to Atherton corridor will be a corridor on a global scale but it will be won tree by tree.