Koalas, Fire Management & Habitat Rehabilitation in SE NSW

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1 Koalas, Fire Management & Habitat Rehabilitation in SE NSW 2 nd National Koala Conference June 2017 Mike Roache, on behalf of Chris Allen Senior Threatened Species Officer NSW Office of Environment and Heritage

2 Today Two very special koala populations Passionate communities Surveys Fires Habitat restoration Monitoring And what even is an SFAZ?! Rob Summers

3 Southern Tablelands & Coastal Forests Numeralla Nimmatabel Bermagui Low-density populations Preferred diet: widely distributed and commonlyoccurring eucalypts Rugged and low fertility landscapes Bega

4 New Flora Reserves Established March 2016: NSW Government added 12,000 hectares to the NSW forest reserve system Murrah, Mumbulla, Tanja and southern part of Bermagui state forests Important koala population and Aboriginal heritage values With Biamanga and Mimosa Rocks National Parks, a reserve > 25,000 hectares All public lands in the koala study area under OEH management

5 Surveys Coastal Forests Tablelands

6 Fast Figures Coastal Forests RGb-SAT survey years & Grid-sites assessed ,000 Biamanga National Park Grid-sites active < 10% Population estimate koalas results Extent of occurrence Population status 30,000 hectares Probably stable with capacity to increase Fire is a major threat

7 Fast Figures Southern Tablelands RGb-SAT survey years Grid-sites assessed Grid-sites active 84 (45%) Population estimate koalas Grid-sites with > 10% Activity 40 (21%) Fire is a major threat

8 Aboriginal survey team members Kooraban National Park 2011

9 Plan of Management The Boards are keenly interested in traditional fire management practices and adapting and applying these practices as appropriate in the Parks

10 A Burning Issue Areas used by koalas overlapped with those designated as Strategic Fire Advantage Zones (SFAZ) SFAZ Overlap Could SFAZ areas be redesigned to better protect life and property and koala assets?

11 Biamanga National Park Fire Management Strategy A NSW first: Fire strategy explicitly addressing koala conservation Avoid hazard reduction burning in areas used by koalas Create low-fuel buffers around those areas Strategy then adopted for Mimosa Rocks and Kooraban National Parks

12 South Coast Fire Simulation Modelling University of Melbourne study Tested the effectiveness of different hazard reduction burns over time Modelled impact of wildfires Quantified the reduction of fire impact to property and koala habitat

13 Rel. Probability of Koala Habitat Burn Rel. Probability of House Burn

14 Putting Theory into Practice Establishment of Flora Reserves meant best management option could be adopted Two hotspots workshops attended by 50 landholders Patches of dense post-logging regrowth with possibility of koala presence require carefully planned burning This may coincide with Aboriginal aspirations to undertake cultural burning programs

15 Tablelands Fire Management Issues Prior to 2011 The need for fuel reduction burns One planned burn quickly developed the characteristics of a severe wildfire Koalas not considered in fire planning Fire absent for many decades in some areas Numeralla-Countegany Volunteer Bushfire Brigade RFS providing some guidance

16 Hazard Reduction Protocols in Numeralla 2013 Relatively high koala occupancy and activity in SFAZ scheduled for burning RFS agreed to burn outside areas mapped with the 10% koala activity contour Hazard reduction was undertaken nearer to human assets Numeralla Gum Reserve Another burning issue

17 Southern Tablelands 2017 Fire Simulation Study Saving our Species (SoS) funding Southern Tablelands fire simulation study Consultative workshops to develop SFAZ options Combination of RGb-SAT data and koala habitat modelling Habitat mapping tools: Vegetation type polygons where preferred species occur Statistical analysis - higher eucalypt diversity and lower altitude CSIRO remote-sensing analysis identifying canopy nitrogen levels at a fine scale

18 Fire Management Conclusions Fire is a big threat to koalas and it will get more serious The RFS has a vital role in koala conservation There doesn t have to be a conflict between the protection of life and property and of biological assets Close collaborative partnership between local RFS and OEH staff and the Aboriginal community and landholders is essential to manage fire well in the landscape

19 Habitat Rehabilitation South Coast 2017 Large areas of post-logging regeneration High to extreme fuel loads Preferred koala browse species struggle to regenerate SoS is funding trial regeneration techniques Aim to promote the regeneration of preferred koala tree species Research plots are in the new Flora Reserves and on Aboriginal and privately owned lands

20 Example Research Plots Dense regeneration of Allocasuarina littoralis E. longifolia seed tree present. No regeneration of this species in the surrounding area

21 Rehabilitation Treatment Matrix Treatment Control Thinning, raking & pruning No thinning raking or pruning Seed tree Burn No burn No seed tree Seed tree No seed tree Seeding 4 4 No seeding No seeding

22 Thinning at Selected Research Plots

23 Community-Led Habitat Rehabilitation Narooma News Making seed balls Building contour banks in seed tree plots

24 ikoala Developed by the Uni of Canberra Linked to the SENSW koala RGb-SAT database Automatically generates reports on: koala distribution tree species size-class preferences trends in koala occupancy rates Additional info: fuel-loads canopy condition stand density age-class Analysis to inform koala conservation initiatives

25 Southeast NSW A few koalas making a big difference Animal Crew