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Bush Matters No 15 December 2012 BushNewsletter of the Conservation PartnersMatters Program No. of the Office of Environment and Heritage NSW 15 Heavy rains in northern NSW earlier in the year charged the waterfalls on Stephanie and Julian Lymburner’s property, Crystal Hill, near Ballina. The Lymburners entered into a Conservation Agreement in 1998 to protect in perpetuity 7.3 hectares. As well as the creek and waterfalls, the property has three distinct native vegetation types — dry rainforest, subtropical rainforest and moist sclerophyll forest — plus a small colony of koalas. Crystal Hill featured in the first issue of Bush Matters in Autumn 2002. You can find it atwww.environment.nsw.gov.au/cpp/BushMatters.htm . Photo: S Lymburner Spring 2012 Contents the Hon. Robyn Parker MP, launched From the Conservation Partners Welcome 2 From the Chief Executive the Chief Folder, providing information and advice on monitoring and managing land for conservation. It includes the recently 2 Conservation Management Executive prepared Conservation Management Notes Notes. The folder will be provided to existing Conservation Agreement 3 Funding applications — landholders, and all new Conservation improving your chance of Agreement and Wildlife Refuge success landholders. The information will also be It is a privilege to take on my new role this accessible on the OEH website. year as the Chief Executive of the Office 4 A Conservation Agreement of Environment and Heritage (OEH). I look The annual Private Land Conservation allows the birds to breed in forward to working across the organisation Grants program administered by the peace, in perpetuity and with a wide range of community Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife stakeholders. Our aim over the next decade offers financial support for on-ground 6 A rainforest love affair is to strengthen our local environment and works on Conservation Agreements, communities. Registered Property Agreements and 9 The Great Eastern Ranges Wildlife Refuges. This program has recently I am very familiar with the OEH Conservation initiaive is expanding been expanded through a financial boost Agreements and Wildlife Refuges. In 2000 from the NSW Environmental Trust. I was involved in establising the services to 10 Land for Wildlife in NSW bring together and support landholders This edition of Bush Matters presents with Conservation Agreements and a range of interesting articles and 11 Live in Sydney and manage Wildlife Refuges, and to work with partners information on monitoring and land elsewhere? Landcare to encourage and support voluntary management. It is great to see can help conservation. I am pleased to see the ever- conservation partners contributing to this increasing number of private and public newsletter, and I encourage you all to get 12 The Hog-hopper® — a new landholders engaged and managing their involved. land for conservation through this program. tool for feral pig control SALLY BARNES In early September, the Minister for the Chief Executive 13 A new threatened species Environment and Minister for Heritage, Office of Environment and Heritage conservation program 14 Fungi offer biological control hope for mistflower Conservation Management Notes and crofton weed The Office of Environment and Heritage has produced a series of information sheets for landholders to assist with planning and management of land for conservation. These 16 New publications new Conservation Management Notes provide advice and suggestions for protecting and improving native vegetation and wildlife habitat. They are intended as an introduction or a refresher, and include an overview of the topic and an outline of current best practice. Under the theme of Wildlife on your property there are five notes to assist Conservation Partners in identifying and managing land for wildlife. The topics covered are: Program • Watching and surveying wildlife Conservation Management Notes Managing bushland and wildlife habitat e conservation.partners@ • Assessing wildlife habitat Seed collecting environment.nsw.gov.au ConservationThis note is for landowners Management wishing to collect Notes native seed for revegetation projects on their Wildlife on yourland. property Collection, cleaning and storage methods • The NSW Atlas of Wildlife are outlined, as well as guidelines for ethical and sustainable collection. w www.environment.nsw.gov.au/ Collecting sustainably and ethically These guidelines will help protect the source area when seeds and other material, (such as underground • Corridors and connectivity Corridorsstems, fern and spores and connectivitycuttings) are being collected: conservationpartners • avoid unnecessary damage (e.g. trampling of This note looks at how corridors might be used to maximise understorey plants) the wildlife habitat value of a fragmented landscape, and what to consider when planning• ensure a nesting corridor sites, project. tree hollows or other animal habitats are not disturbed In agricultural and other developed• do not landscapes, remove more natural seed or plant material than • Integrating wildlife conservation and farm management. habitat is often only available in small,is required isolated patches. These landscapes are unable to support their full complement of m Office of Environment and native plants and wildlife, and those• do notthat remove have survived more than may 20 percent of the fruit from any one plant be in diffi revegetation culty. projects To restore in recent landscape decades• do connectivity, not have take aimed more many not that only 10 percent of plant material to increase the area of habitat but to alsofrom re-link any isolatedone plant (larger seed quantities should natural areas with corridors. be obtained by collecting from more plants) • avoid bringing weeds into the collection site by Heritage NSW cleaning shoes, collection equipment, etc Types of corridors Banksia serrata cones protect the seeds • take particular care when collecting from rare or The hard capsules on The theme Managing bushland and wildlife habitat deals Linear or strip corridors threatened plants — if collecting may put a local from bushfi res, and most predators, but the yellow-tailed continuous, bands of vegetation or waterway. population of a species further at risk, it may be black cockatoo hasand a powerfulaccess the enough nutritious bill seed. to break Photo: through V Bear Stepping stones are continuous, or mostlybetter not to collect at all. PO Box A290 trees, or wetlands or farm dams. The patches become a corridor when the distance are isolated between patches them of vegetation,is small enough single for some species to be able to move from one patch to the next. with native vegetation and includes: Even single paddock trees are valuable and can act as stepping stones or provide habitat for some species. Leave plenty of seed behind in the environment — it doesn’t go to Sydney South NSW 1232 waste if not collected Native seed is a valuable resource, not only for seed collectors and plant propagators, but also for the plants that produce it, andThe superbfor the blue native wren will birds, make use mammals of planted and insects that feed on it. habitat within a few years, however many other Native vegetation needs re.birds Thea will healthy onlyseedbank use seedbanklarge areas is made of healthy to upcontinually native of seed still regenerate, on the plants and toand recover seed that from has dropped • Restoring native vegetation: regenerate or revegetate? vegetation. Our knowledge of how animals might disturbance such as fi use corridors is still quite limited. Photo: V Bear B and is stored in the soil. Excessive removal of seeds from an area that is being left to regenerate could jeopardise plant recovery. It takes a large number of seeds to produce a mature plant — many seeds and seedlings are eaten, or of nd the right growing conditions to survive to maturity. 1 4 Your contact for information • Natural regeneration fail to fi www.environment.nsw.gov.au/cpp/conservationpartners.htm about the newsletter is: • Revegetation A Louise Brodie 02 9995 6770 Remnants of native vegetation in an agricultural landscape. Roadside vegetation forms a strip corridor linking patch A with patchB. C • Seed collecting. A series of small remnants and paddock trees form a stepping stone corridor linking B and C. [email protected]. www.environment.nsw.gov.au/cpp/conservationpartners.htm gov.au The notes are available on the website 1 of 4 www.environment.nsw.gov.au/cpp/ConservationManagementNotes.htm Contributions: we welcome landholder stories, case studies For hard copies, call Bruce at the Conservation Partners Program on 02 9995 6763. and photographs for possible inclusion in Bush Matters. Please More notes are currently in preparation. contact Louise. 2 Bush Matters Spring 2012 Funding applications — improving your chance of success One way of obtaining funding for management works on your conservation area is to apply for funding whenever suitable grants are announced. Put yourself in the assessors’ shoes and make it easy for them to understand what you intend to achieve and how you propose to go about it. Allow plenty of time, and consider questions carefully. A properly completed application will be viewed more favourably than one which does not supply the information requested. Fenced woodland on the Conservation Agreement property, Edala, near Nimmitabel. Fencing to manage stock is one of the most effective ways to protect native vegetation, so can be a good choice for a grant-funded project. Future photos
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