Globally, 41 percent of Mediterranean ecosystems have been lost to agricultural pressure, urbanization and logging and only 5 percent have been permanently protected. This has been the outcome of intensive human settlement in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. Almost all of their original vegetation has been replaced with agriculture and urban sprawl, has been heavily logged for timber and firewood and/or has been heavily grazed by animals. In Australia, the general pattern is similar, with the majority of Mediterranean woodlands and shrublands cleared to form the wheat belts that dominate southwestern and eastern Australia.
Australia stands out, however, in having a huge area of intact Mediterranean woodlands and shrublands in excellent condition. The Great Western Woodlands (GWW) in the southwest part of the country contains more than 35 million acres of native vegetation in good to excellent condition. Equivalent to Africa‚'s Serengeti or South America's Amazon, the Great Western Woodlands is an internationally significant area of great biological richness.