Construction is well-and-truly underway on the landmark conservation fence at Wilsons Promontory National Park, marking a major milestone in one of Victoria's most ambitious and long-term conservation projects, the Prom Sanctuary.

The 10-kilometre exclusion fence is a key part of the Prom Sanctuary program, a globally significant initiative that aims to protect one of Australia's most important natural landscapes by excluding invasive pests and creating both a safe haven and climate refuge for native wildlife.

The 55,000ha Wilsons Promontory National Park is one of Victoria's most loved parks, with more than 600,000 visitors coming each year to connect with nature. It is also home to more than 150 threatened plant and animal species across its many ecosystems - from tall forests and banksia woodlands to heathlands, coastal dunes and dramatic beaches and offshore islands.

Surrounded by the cool waters of Bass Strait and situated at the southern tip of mainland Australia, the Prom's unique location and geography make it an ideal climate refuge, offering one of the best opportunities in Australia to restore ecosystems at a landscape scale and support species recovery into the future.

Image: Area Chief Ranger Brett Mitchell walks the Prom Sanctuary fence while it is being constructed.

Parks Victoria Chief Scientist Dr Mark Norman said the project had been decades in the making, with the construction of the fence representing the transition from years of planning into on-ground delivery.

“After years of preparatory work, including our many conservation programs across the park, it’s very exciting to see the predator- and deer-proof sanctuary fence start to take shape,” Dr Norman said.

Area Chief Ranger Brett Mitchell agreed.

“This conservation fence has been a concept for over 50 years now, and to finally see it under construction is just a really exciting time for the park staff and the park itself,” Brett said.

The fence will stretch across the Yanakie Isthmus between Shallow Inlet and Corner Inlet, creating a barrier that prevents invasive animals such as foxes, feral cats and deer from entering the national park while conservation programs within the park removes the numbers and impacts of these introduced species.

Careful planning has also ensured construction of the 10-kilometre fence will have minimal impact on the surrounding environment.

Working closely with Traditional Owners, this planning has included assessment of cultural values along the fence alignment to minimise impacts on this hugely significant cultural landscape.

To protect native vegetation, much of the alignment follows the park boundary and adjacent cleared land, including sections on privately owned properties that have been leased by Parks Victoria to minimise impacts.

“Where we've located the fence minimises the disruption to the park's conservation values,” Brett said.

“By placing the alignment on already cleared areas, there's minimal loss of vegetation and some of those really significant trees.”

Image: The vast majority of the Prom Sanctuary fence is being built on the edge of the national park, avoiding the need for vegetation removal. 

Protecting native wildlife has also been built into the fence's design.

Wombats are a common sight at Wilsons Promontory, and have already begun investigating the fence line.

As the fence comes together, rangers are recording where wombats test or dig under the fence and can work out the best places to put in special wombat gates.

“Once we ascertain the main routes where wombats are travelling across the area, we'll position wombat gates so that they can still move freely in and out of the park,” Brett said.

“The wombats are strong enough to push through but these heavy gates are too heavy for foxes and feral cats to push through. Talking to other sanctuary operators, the wombats eventually treat the fence as an immovable object and get used to using the gates.”

Image: One of the wombat gates being constructed at an area identifed as a main wombat thouroughfare. 

The two ends of the fence have also been carefully designed to suit the dynamic coastal environments of Shallow and Corner Inlets. Rather than extending directly into the tidal waters, the fence will stop short of the shoreline.

This avoids damage from shifting sand, drifting seagrass and large logs carried by tides, while allowing conservation teams to concentrate pest control in a much smaller area.

“Instead of controlling ten kilometres of frontline where pests can enter, the fence reduces the area to two 50-metre strips where we can focus our control efforts,” Brett said.

“Those zones will be monitored 24/7 with cameras, so we'll be able to identify what's leaving or entering the park and have some really good intelligence to direct our control programs.”

Construction of the fence is continuing and is expected to be complete in late-2026.

The exclusion fence is one part of a much broader conservation program for the Prom Sanctuary that also includes pest control, deer removal, habitat restoration and extensive ecological monitoring.

The long-term vision for the Prom Sanctuary is to create an environment where native species can recover and thrive, providing a refuge for species increasingly affected by climate change elsewhere in Australia, and creating a safe place to reintroduce species lost to the area.

Parks Victoria has been aided in the planning and construction of the fence by the Odonata Foundation, who run sanctuaries in Victoria and Western Australia and were contracted to design the best fence specifications for the unique combination of habitats and wildlife found at Wilsons Promontory.

The Prom Sanctuary project has been supported by the Victorian and Commonwealth governments, and is being developed in close partnership with Gunaikurnai, Bunorong and Boonwurrung Traditional Owners, other conservation and research organisations, and the project’s lead fundraising partner, the People and Parks Foundation.

Visit the People and Parks Foundation website to see how you can help the Prom Sanctuary come to life.