Alleged 70 per cent hazard reduction burn over two days planned for the biodiverse Billinudgel Nature Reserve in June 2021

Echo NetDaily, 11 June 2021:

Local Minjungbal Indigenous leaders are asking the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to consult with them over a planned hazard reduction burn at Billinudgel Nature Reserve but a scheduled meeting was cancelled by NPWS. 

Billinudgel Nature Reserve where the hazard reduction
burn is planned by National Parks and Wildlife Service.

The hazard reduction burn was originally scheduled for the Billinudgel Nature Reserve on 3 June with neighbours being informed by letter on 2 June.

‘We got notification that Billinudgel was going to have a hazard reduction burn which gave me time to get in touch with NPWS to discuss some options and ask them to sit down with traditional owners to look at cultural issues in the reserve,’ said Rachael Cavanagh, a Minjungbal woman and traditional owner that covers the Billinudgel Nature Reserve.

Rachael said a meeting was originally set up but was then cancelled by the NPWS who said that they would only speak to the Tweed Byron Aboriginal Land Council (TB ALC).

‘They are not the traditional owners,’ Rachael pointed out. ‘Everyone deserves a voice. We are on the Native Title claim for the Five Rivers and the Tweed Bundjalung people. We are the traditional owners who hold the cultural knowledge on the land values. We still have fire law that has been continued in our family,’ she told The Echo. 

Billinudgel Nature Reserve.

‘NPWS legislation states that they need to engage with traditional owners and knowledge holders. By their own legislation they are supposed to meet all registered parties.’

Rachael has been a fire fighter for 20 years with the Queensland National Parks and Forestry Corporation and is engaged with the Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation.

‘I am in a senior leadership team for National Fire Sticks Alliance. We support and build capacity with Indigenous groups nationally to support cultural fire practices and traditional land management for people on country. We look at the whole picture.’

Having been denied the option to meet with NPWS Rachael told The Echo that their lawyer has now sent a letter to NPWS to seek a meeting between the traditional owners and NPWS in relation to the burn.

‘Pretty much our family are fighting to be at the table and be part the discussion,’ she said.

‘They are planning to for a 70 per cent hazard reduction burn over two days which means it will be very hot, raging and overall health of the forest and the cultural values will be at risk, the understory will be and the canopy will be scorched, the animals will have nowhere to go to.

‘Regardless of whether it is Billinudgel or Cudgen. I will be fighting to have a say over the management of Minyungbal Country.’

‘Regardless of whether it is Billinudgel or Cudgen. I will be fighting to have a seat at the table.’…... 

BACKGROUND

Billinudgel Nature Reserve was created in April 1996. It's current size is 789 ha. Approximately 75% of the Reserve is within Byron Shire with the remainder in Tweed Shire in the NSW Northern Rivers region.

The Reserve protects the following features: 

· a large tract of natural lowland coastal vegetation, a significant remnant in an otherwise highly modified environment; 

· an extensive wetland containing Melaleuca swamp forest; 

· a diversity of habitat which supports a wide range of fauna and flora including rare, threatened, significant and migratory species; 

· Aboriginal sites and landscapes of significance; and 

· features of scientific interest. 

In the 2016 Byron Coast Comprehensive Koala Plan of Management the North Byron Koala Management Area encompasses an area of approximately 2,814ha located to the north of the Brunswick River and includes the Billinudgel Nature Reserve along with the localities of South Golden Beach, Ocean Shores and Billinudgel.

localities of South Golden Beach, Ocean Shores and Billinudgel as indicated by Figure 3 of the

Northern Rivers Region Billinudgel, Marshalls Creek, Jinangong, and Brunswick Heads (north) Nature Reserves Fire Management Strategy (Type 2) 2016 at:

https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/-/media/OEH/Corporate-Site/Documents/Parks-reserves-and-protected-areas/Fire-management-strategies/billinudgel-marshalls-creek-jinangong-brunswick-heads-reserves-fire-management-strategy-160705.pdf

Emus of the Clarence Coast, NSW

 

Clarence Valley Independent, 26 May 2021:

The Lions Club of Clarence – Environmental [LCCE] is a rare breed of Lions club and, just like the threatened coastal emus it is campaigning to protect, its vital numbers are growing.

The nature-focussed group, the first of its kind in Australia, has gathered 1,318 signatures on its petition to reduce the speed limit on Brooms Head Road from 100kph to 80kph, particularly where emus regularly cross. In October last year, volunteers completed the group’s first major project, planting 250 trees and shrubs on a Shark Creek property that was devastated by bushfires in September and October of 2019. “The endangered coastal emu, phascogale, brolga, and an amazing amount of birdlife visit the [78 acres] property, which is about 80 percent wetland and dedicated to the Wildlife Land Trust,” LCCE spokesperson Barbara Linley said at the time.

Last week, around 100 people attended the launch of Clarence Distillery’s new Three Emu Vodka at the Yamba Surf Life Saving Club. “Earlier this year the distillery’s co-owner, Alison [Sloley] spoke to me about a new line and supporting the endangered coastal emu,” Ms. Linley said at the function. “Alison suggested that our group runs a silent auction to raise more funds for the emus and that for this night $5 per bottle goes to the emu campaign. “I also want to thank NSW Save Our Species, Clarence Valley Council, and Yaegl, the traditional owners…..

Another reason why Australia's remaining native forests should be saved from the loggers - rare bees

 

An Australian native bee believed extinct is found after a 97 year absence from the records.

Pharohylaeus lactiferus 
IMAGE: James Dorey Photography

The Journal of Hymenoptera Research 81:165-180, 25 February 2021:

Missing for almost 100 years: the rare and potentially threatened bee, Pharohylaeus lactiferus (Hymenoptera, Colletidae)

James B. Dorey

Abstract

The Australian endemic bee, Pharohylaeus lactiferus (Colletidae: Hylaeinae) is a rare species that requires conservation assessment. Prior to this study, the last published record of this bee species was from 1923 in Queensland, and nothing was known of its biology. Hence, I aimed to locate extant populations, provide biological information and undertake exploratory analyses relevant to its assessment. Pharohylaeus lactiferus was recently rediscovered as a result of extensive sampling of 225 general and 20 targeted sampling sites across New South Wales and Queensland. Collections indicate possible floral and habitat specialisation with specimens only found near Tropical or Sub-Tropical Rainforest and only visiting Stenocarpus sinuatus (Proteaceae) and Brachychiton acerifolius (Malvaceae), to the exclusion of other available floral resources. Three populations were found by sampling bees visiting these plant species along much of the Australian east coast, suggesting population isolation. GIS analyses used to explore habitat destruction in the Wet Tropics and Central Mackay Coast bioregions indicate susceptibility of Queensland rainforests and P. lactiferus populations to bushfires, particularly in the context of a fragmented landscape. Highly fragmented habitat and potential host specialisation might explain the rarity of P. lactiferus. Targeted sampling and demographic analyses are likely required to thoroughly assess the status of this species and others like it.

Keywords

Conservation, extinction risk, fragmentation, Hylaeinae, invertebrate conservation, Queensland, wildfire, rainforest

Introduction

The greatest threats to ecosystems and species worldwide are habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation (Vie et al. 2009). Australia has already cleared over 40% of its forests and woodlands since European colonisation, leaving much of the remainder fragmented and degraded (Bradshaw 2012). The vast majority of clearing has occurred on freehold and leasehold land and for animal agriculture (Evans 2016). In particular, Queensland is a contemporary land-clearing hotspot and is responsible for more than half of all land-clearing in Australia over the past four decades (Evans 2016). It is a failing of state and federal government policy and regulation that land clearing in Queensland continues at rates that should be of concern both nationally and internationally (Reside et al. 2017).

Despite the ecological importance of Australian native bees, we know very little about their biology (Batley and Hogendoorn 2009) or conservation status. North Queensland hosts high species richness and endemism (Crisp et al. 2001; Orme et al. 2005; Hurlbert and Jetz 2007) and several bee genera that are found nowhere else in Australia (Houston 2018; Smith 2018). These restricted bee genera include: Ctenoplectra Kirby (Apidae: Apinae), Nomada Scopoli (Apidae: Nomadinae), Mellitidia Guérin-Méneville (Halictidae: Nomiinae), Reepenia Friese (Halictidae: Nomiinae), Patellapis Friese (Halictidae: Halictinae) and Pharohylaeus Michener (Colletidae: Hylaeinae).

Pharohylaeus has only two described species: P. papuaensis Hirashima & Roberts in Papua New Guinea and P. lactiferus (Cockerell) in Australia (Houston 1975; Hirashima and Roberts 1986). Both species are relatively large (9–11 mm), robust, mostly black with distinctive white facial and body markings, and have the first three tergal segments enlarged and enclosing the others. The former is known only from two females which were collected on Syzygium aqueum (Burm.f.) Alston (Myrtaceae) in 1982 (Hirashima and Roberts 1986). No published records of P. lactiferus have been made since the third of January 1923, when three males were collected in the Atherton Tablelands; in May of 1900 a male and a female were collected in Mackay while another female was collected in Kuranda prior to 1910 (Cockerell 1910; Houston 1975). However, the collection localities of these specimens are imprecise and no biological data were recorded.

Due to the dearth of biological information on P. lactiferus prior to this study, I aimed to locate extant populations and contribute biological information as part of a broader bee survey. Because of this, much of what follows are exploratory analyses of the potential risks for P. lactiferus and suggestions for future research. Hence, I undertook a series of post-hoc analyses in order to provide insights into the biology, ecology and potential extinction risks associated with P. lactiferus. I provide insights into the circumstances of the rediscovery of P. lactiferus and what is now known of its floral and habitat associations. I also explore spatial data relating to P. lactiferus (vegetation association, potential fire risks and occurrences) and my sampling methods (for potential biases). The possible floral and habitat specialisation along with the rarity of P. lactiferus raises concerns about its conservation status. I further highlight the need for preservation of remnant vegetation and better arthropod-diversity monitoring, particularly for at-risk and phylogenetically important species.

Methodology can be found here.

Deputy Premier John Barilaro and the National Party continue laying waste to regional New South Wales

 

NSW Deputy Premier, leader of the 18 member parliamentary National Party and Minister for Regional New South Wales, John Barilaro, sits atop a portfolio which holds in its departmental domain an est. 40 per cent of all NSW residents, in around 99 local government areas which produce approximately one-third of the total NSW gross state product.

Barilaro has gathered his own party members as minsters with responsibilities within the department - Nationals MLA for Northern Tablelands and Minister for Agriculture and Western New South Wales Adam Marshall and Nationals MLC and Minister for Mental Health, Regional Youth and Women Bronnie Taylor.

There does not seem to be a NSW Liberal Party politician within cooee of the relatively new 'purpose built' regional department.

The only function NSW Premier and Leader of the much larger parliamentary Liberal Party, Gladys Berejiklian, appears to now have with regard to those regional areas of the state is to act as a rubber stamp of approval for Barilaro's wishes - apparently out of fear he may still follow through on his threats to destabilise the state government.

There is little doubt that Berejiklian was weakened by the barely disguised guerrilla war Barilaro conducted (after losing the battle to amend the Land Services Act) using mainstream media as his weapon.

This is the current state of play à la Barilaro when it comes to forests and biodiversity in regional NSW.....

Michael West Media, 19 February 2021:

More than 62% of harvestable native forests were damaged in the catastrophic 2019-20 bushfires, according to the NSW government’s own records. Up to 10% of native hardwood forests were lost. Nearly 3 billion animals were killed or displaced, with about 8,000 koalas incinerated on the mid north coast of NSW alone. Some 113 animal species were identified as the highest priorities for urgent management intervention.

Despite this unprecedented damage to forests and wildlife, Deputy Premier John Barilaro is determined that industrial-scale logging will continue in NSW’s burnt and unburnt forests.

When the Environment Protection Authority sought a voluntary halt to logging in a number of state forests in March last year, after intervention by John Barilaro, the NSW Forestry Corporation rejected the request. Barilaro also holds the portfolio of Regional New South Wales, Industry and Trade, which covers the timber industry.

The EPA report says logging continued “because John Barilaro asked the [Forestry Corporation] to deliver on contractual obligations”.

Moreover, in the latest round of bushfire recovery pork barrelling announced by Barilaro, he awarded more than $38 million of the $177 million to timber/forestry projects.

These grants came on top of some $46 million that Barilaro’s Department, Regional NSW, awarded to the Forestry Corporation under bushfire recovery measures for urgent infrastructure repairs, nursery expansions and replanting the forest.

Barilaro’s Department of Regional NSW claims that forestry and related industries are responsible for more than 22,300 jobs.

Yet a 2016 report by The Australia Institute estimated that just 600 people were directly employed in the industry. The TAI report also put the economic losses of the native forest industry in NSW at $79 million over the past seven years, meaning that not only are taxpayers propping up an unviable industry, they are also propping up an industry that is adding to environmental destruction.

The Forestry Corporation also rejected a plea from the EPA for extra site-specific conditions to protect koalas.

Environment Protection Authority review

Four months ago, in September 2020, the EPA published a review it had commissioned from Dr Andrew Smith, an acknowledged expert in forest planning and management.

His review was the result of a consultation between the EPA and the Forestry Corporation to develop a suite of site-specific operating conditions to manage environmental risks associated with timber harvesting in burnt landscapes – a result of a “critical shortage of timber” after the bushfires.

Dr Smith’s findings were concerning. In particular Dr Smith noted:

• Recovery times are likely to be up to 45 years for the koala and 20-120 years for the Greater Glider and Yellow-bellied Glider.

• Fauna populations are at risk of elimination by timber harvesting under the normal Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals and cause catastrophic population decline in species such as the Koala, Greater Glider and Yellow-bellied Glider.

• There should be a halt to logging of all unburnt and lightly burnt forests within the net harvest area for 12 months.

But the Forestry Corporation rejected his recommendations and advised the EPA that it intended to return to harvesting in September 2020 as it is “legally obliged to do so in order to meet supply commitments”.

Scientists, conservation organisations, and local communities are appalled by ongoing logging of burnt forests at a time when NSW native forests and wildlife need time to recover. Indigenous rights of native title holders whose land includes forests are also  ignored.

Vulnerable and endangered species

The Forestry Corporation also approves its own harvest plans and is responsible for reporting non compliance.

An analysis of the harvest plans on the Forestry Corporation’s website demonstrates that almost every wildlife species included in logging plans for the north-east forests is either listed on the schedules of the Biodiversity Conservation Act or the Commonwealth EPBC list as vulnerable and endangered species.

Recommended recovery plans have not been developed as required and a significant number of affected species are under consideration for upgrading to endangered status by the Federal Threatened Species Scientific Committee.

NSW shuts down opposition

The Berejiklian government has also gone to great lengths to ensure no legal challenges can be mounted to prevent this industrial scale logging of NSW forests and the loss of biodiversity. The Premier’s actions strike at the heart of democracy…..

Read the full article here.

The Berejiklian Government appears willing to stand by and watch wild koalas rapidly go extinct in New South Wales within the next 30 years

Under cover of the public heath emergency created by the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Berejiklian Government is still not genuinely moving to save koala populations in New South Wales from extinction.

The Liberal Party leadership is still paralysed by the blackmail threats of National Party leader and MLA for Monaro John Barilaro - and so Liberal MLA for Hornsby Matt Kean in his conflicted role of Minister for Energy and Environment is doing little except mouthing soothing platitudes and making empty promises.

Because logging remaining native forests on Crown and private land - for woodchip, logs, sawn & dressed timber and biomass for power station/s - is what Liberal and Nationals shadowy political donors, greedy logging companies and developers hungry for cheap land are insisting needs to happen.

People in the Northern Rivers region are noticing.

I see #koalakiller is trending again. @GladysB if you don't want to see this keep trending, solutions are simple - 1st you need local koala coordinators & local koala community action plans for each population, then you need to fund them. Each population has its own needs🙏🐨💖 pic.twitter.com/Yy8RERhdEY

— Maria Matthes (@talkingkoala) January 12, 2021

The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 January 2021: 

Koala advocates say the NSW government is not doing enough to save the animal from extinction after it backed without qualification a quarter of the recommendations of an upper house inquiry into the marsupial's populations and habitat. 

In its formal response into the koala inquiry, the government supported 11 of the 42 recommendations, while offering "support in principle" to 17 others. 

It "noted" the remaining 14. Among the recommendations supported was the suggestion the government rule out opening old-growth forests within the state reserve for logging, and that it create Georges River National Park to secure habitat on Sydney's southern fringe. 

However, it only "noted" the call to investigate setting up a Great Koala National Park in northern NSW. 

“Recommendations such as the government urgently investigates the ‘utilisation of core koala habitat on private land and in state forests to replenish koala habitat lost in the bushfires’ appear to be rejected out of hand," Cate Faehrmann, the Greens MP and chair of the upper house committee, said. 

“Many of the key recommendations, the vast majority of which were supported by all committee members because they are what needs to be done to save koalas from extinction, seem to have been rejected outright." 

The inquiry's report, released last June, found koalas were on track for extinction in the wild in NSW before 2050 with habitat loss the main driver of their demise. Environment Minister Matt Kean said in the following month that he would set a goal to double the numbers of the animals - believed to be as few as 15,000 to 20,000 - by 2050.....

Australia's unique plant species declining in population numbers faster than mammals and birds

The Conversation, excerpt, 16 December 2020:

Plants, such as WA’s Endangered Foote’s grevillea, make our landscape unique.
 Andrew Crawford / WA Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions

Australia’s plant species are special - 84% are found nowhere else in the world. The index shows that over about 20 years up to 2017, Australia’s threatened plant populations declined by 72%. This is faster than mammals (which declined by about a third), and birds (which declined by about half). Populations of trees, shrubs, herbs and orchids all suffered roughly similar average declines (65-75%) over the two decades.

Of the 112 species in the index, 68% are critically endangered or endangered and at risk of extinction if left unmanaged. Some 37 plant species have gone extinct since records began, though many others are likely to have been lost before scientists even knew they existed. Land clearing, changed fire regimes, grazing by livestock and feral animals, plant diseases, weeds and climate change are common causes of decline.

Vulnerable plant populations reduced to small areas can also face unique threats. For example, by the early 2000s Foote’s grevillea (Grevillea calliantha) had dwindled to just 27 wild plants on road reserves. Road maintenance activities such as mowing and weed spraying became a major threat to its survival. For other species, like the button wrinklewort, small populations can lead to inbreeding and a lack of genetic diversity.... 

Threatened plant conservation in fire-prone landscapes is challenging if a species’ relationship with fire is not known. Many Australian plant species require particular intensities or frequencies of burns for seed to be released or germinate. But since European settlement, fire patterns have been interrupted, causing many plant populations to decline. 

Three threatened native pomaderris shrubs on the NSW South Coast are a case in point. Each of them – Pomaderris adnata, P. bodalla and P. walshii – have failed to reproduce for several years and are now found only in a few locations, each with a small number of plants. 

Experimental trials recently revealed that to germinate, the seeds of these pomaderris species need exposure to hot-burning fires (or a hot oven). However they are now largely located in areas that seldom burn. This is important knowledge for conservation managers aiming to help wild populations persist.... 

A quarter of the species in the threatened plant index are orchids. Orchids make up 17% of plant species listed nationally as threatened, despite comprising just 6% of Australia’s total plant species. 

The endangered coloured spider-orchid (Caladenia colorata) is pollinated only by a single thynnine wasp, and relies on a single species of mycorrhizal fungi to germinate in the wild. 

Yet even for such a seemingly difficult species, conservation success is possible. In one project, scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, aided by volunteers, identified sites where the wasp was still naturally present. More than 800 spider orchid plants were then propagated in a lab using the correct symbiotic fungus, then planted at four sites. These populations are now considered to be self-sustaining. 

In the case of Foote’s grevillea, a plant translocation program has established 500 plants at three new sites, dramatically improving the species’ long-term prospects.

The coloured spider orchid, found in South Australia and Victoria, is endangered. 
Noushka Reiter/Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria