FungiBank - Home - Using the services of Australia's fungi to restore landscapes

Using the services of Australia's fungi to restore landscapes

FungiBank improves the availability of information about Australia’s rich resource bank of native fungi. It provides information on the benefits of incorporating native fungi into revegetation and advice on sourcing and propagating native fungi. We hope FungiBank will encourage and enable people to find and recognize fungi and to use the fungi efficiently and responsibly in management and restoration of landscapes.

A prominent focus of FungiBank is fungi of Australia’s remnant temperate woodlands as revegetation and restoration in these regions is an urgent national issue. FungiBank also supports work in other woody ecosystems in other parts of Australia including eucalypt forests, urban bushlands and rehabilitating mine sites.

Why bother with fungi anyway?

There are many reasons - here are a few:

Urgency: Natural reservoirs of native fungi are rapidly depleting. What will be our source of native fungi in the future?
Essential Heritage: Fungi are a major part of Australia's heritage due to their richness, uniqueness, crucial roles in decomposition and recycling of soil nutrients, and beneficial partnerships with native plants and animals.
Self-sustaining revegetation: Just as we put back native plants, we also need to put back the original fungi.
Environmental accreditation: Likely to increasingly determine marketability of Australian farm and forest products. There will be demand for revegetation with high native biodiversity in commercial lands.

FungiBank is produced by CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products.
Funding is supported by the Bushcare program of
the Commonwealth's Natural Heritage Trust.