bushtracks Bush Heritage Magazine | Winter 2020 Six months on Seeds of change The firebirds Yourka Reserve is buzzing with A burning program in the Mimal Rangers in Arnhem life once more after a severe Kimberley brings new hope for Land are burning country the bushfire in December 2019. Gouldian Finches and other right way, with a fire-spreading seed-eating species. raptor at their side. Bush Heritage acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the places in which we live, work and play. We recognise the enduring relationships they have with their lands and waters, and we pay our respects to Elders, “Through all of this, your unwavering support past and present. has been staggering. It has allowed our staff to continue doing their vitally important work and for that I cannot thank you enough.” CONTRIBUTORS Amelia Caddy Eliza Herbert Kate Thorburn DESIGN Viola Design 1 Liffey Valley Reserve, Tas. Photo by Annette Ruzicka COVER IMAGE A Mareeba Rock-wallaby (Petrogale 2 n March this year, our Bunuba partners in the There have been many silver linings to the past mareeba). Photo by Dave Watts/ Kimberley region of Western Australia were few months, too. Across the globe, from Venice to naturepl.com Six months on I due to start a project that had been a long time Los Angeles, the environment is benefitting from coming: bringing back right-way winthali (fire) to humankind’s newfound stillness. Pollution and parts of their country that hadn’t been walked on greenhouse gas emissions have dropped and wild for many decades. But when COVID-19 arrived it animals are reclaiming urban spaces, proving that threw a spanner in the works. nature can bounce back when given the chance. This publication uses 100% post-consumer 6 Through all of this, your unwavering support has waste recycled fibre, made with a carbon In ‘Seeds of change’ (p. 6), you’ll learn how, been staggering. It has allowed our staff to continue neutral manufacturing process, using Seeds of change with determination and some creative thinking, doing their vitally important work and for that I vegetable-based inks. Bunuba ultimately were able to push ahead with their winthali project and we’re privileged to be cannot thank you enough. supporting them in that work. In much the same BUSH HERITAGE AUSTRALIA With care, way, our staff have been finding ways to ensure that T 1300 628 873 our reserves – particularly those affected by the E [email protected] 8 Black Summer fires – are still being protected and Heather Campbell W www.bushheritage.org.au looked after. Through all of this, the health of our Chief Executive Officer Bush Heroes staff, our supporters, and of course the bush, has Follow Bush Heritage on: been foremost in our minds. Adapting to change has been a consistent theme of 2020 so far. Whether it’s learning how to home school, stay connected with loved ones, or plan a 10 burning program in the Kimberley under social distancing guidelines, this year has taught us all The firebirds how to adapt and operate in different ways. 1 7 Tiger Hill on Yourka Reserve, Qld. Photo by Martin Willis ne summer’s night halfway through December 2019, a lightning strike hit Bush O Heritage’s Yourka Reserve on Jirrbal and Warrungu country in far north Queensland. Yourka is no stranger to lightning. This is the Einasleigh Uplands, where the summers are hot and humid and storms are a dime a dozen. Typically, lightning will strike a tree, causing a fire that will burn 20 metres or so, get rained on and self-extinguish. That night in December however, the rain didn’t come. Suffering from a string of dry months, the reserve was, in the words of long-time Yourka Reserve Manager Paul Hales, “basically cardboard”. He estimates that Yourka’s ‘cure rate’ – a measurement used to assess grass flammability– was close to the maximum of 100 percent. For the first time in Bush Heritage’s 11-year history of protecting Yourka, a lightning strike had started a bushfire. By the next morning, the fire was burning hot and fast. It swept up and over Yourka’s eastern foothills including Tiger Hill, where a population of diminutive Mareeba Rock-wallabies live amongst the granite outcrops. Wind at its back, the flames continued westwards. Paul, other Bush Heritage staff, units from the Queensland Rural Fire Service, neighbours and contractors would spend the next 10 days containing the fire, responding to the last active ground burning on Christmas Day. It would take another 12 days of patrolling and mopping up to completely Six months on extinguish the blaze. All up, 18,800 hectares of Yourka burnt – approximately 43 percent of the reserve or an Silver linings shine as Bush Heritage’s area roughly 10 times the size of tourist town Port Douglas. After that first, intense day however, the Yourka Reserve in far north Queensland blaze moved at a slower pace, allowing animals time regenerates following a significant to escape and causing minimal long-term damage to vegetation. bushfire last year. For many of us, fire invokes fear. Yet in northern Australia, fire is part of the furniture. This is a STORY BY KATE THORBURN landscape of extremes where ecosystems not only endure burning, but often also benefit from it. As Paul puts it, “this country has burnt before and it will burn again”. 3 bushtracks “All the burnt country is heavy with grass...The Cockatoo Grass is at shoulder height, the Giant Speargrass almost double that, the big trees look happy.” “That’s ideal habitat for arboreal mammals like Six months on and Yourka is buzzing with life. Greater Gliders and Possums.” Thanks to 500 millimetres of late summer rain that arrived five weeks after the blaze, major creeks are Another upside; easier visibility of and access to flowing clean and clear. It’s as if a green film has been infestations of Siam Weed and Lantana – two of the placed over the landscape. biggest ecological challenges at Yourka. “All the burnt country is heavy with grass,” says Paul. And another; a lot of weeds don’t like fire so Paul’s “The Cockatoo Grass is at shoulder height, the Giant betting on their seedbanks being depleted. Speargrass almost double that, the big trees look happy. Pretty much everything is coming back.” A heart-stopping moment “It can be hard to imagine after weeks of exhausting And the Mareeba Rock-wallabies? work fighting fires that the country will spring back so incredibly, but it has,” adds Leanne Hales, Paul’s Paul and Leanne visited Tiger Hill a few weeks after wife and Bush Heritage Volunteer Coordinator for the fire went through. As they clambered up the northern Australia. craggy granite outcrop to set up monitoring cameras, unsure of what they would find at the top, a flash of Like much of far north Queensland, Yourka struggles movement caught their eyes. with woody thickening, a phenomenon whereby trees grow close together. The shade produced by this A Mareeba Rock-wallaby bounced out, followed by crowding suffocates the growth of grasses, herbs and another and another. Four healthy animals were shrubs critical to the diets of animals like Rufous spotted that day, and images collected from the Bettongs, Brown- and Long-nosed Bandicoots, camera traps since have confirmed more, including Melomys and other native rodents. joeys and babies in their mother’s pouches. “The problem is that you end up with a monoculture… “We were both extremely relieved,” recalls Paul. which is hard to reverse,” says Paul. “Those key “There was a big question mark over that population species like Cockatoo Grass and Kangaroo Grass, so we were happy to see them and see that they were that’s what we’re trying to restore and that’s what will none the worse for wear.” help all those ground-dwelling mammals.” “The Rock-wallabies are a symbol really,” says Leanne. Addressing woody thickening is one of the main aims “They’re a symbol that the country bounces back.” of Yourka’s fire plan. For up to eight weeks each year, The silver linings shine. Bush Heritage staff and contractors put in controlled, cool burns to help prevent woody thickening and reduce the severity and size of dry season bushfires. December’s fire helped to thin out the trees on Yourka to the extent that in some parts of the reserve, daylight is hitting the ground for the first time in 25 years; good news for that all-important understorey. 8 “This fire will hopefully flick the switch the other Yourka Reserve Manager Paul Hales. way so those big old hollow-bearing trees like Photo by Martin Willis 3 Stringybarks and Bloodwoods might be able to Grassy woodlands on Yourka Reserve. replace themselves over time,” explains Paul. Photo by Martin Willis 7 xx 4 Seeds of change Fire can be as harmful as it is essential in the Kimberley of Western Australia. Maintaining that fine balance is at the heart of the Bunuba Rangers’ fire program, bringing right-way winthali back to country. STORY BY AMELIA CADDY 1 A Gouldian Finch (Erythrura gouldiae). Photo by Martin Willis “For the past few decades, unmanaged hot fires have unuba Elder Joe Ross can recall seeing and younger vegetation that provides habitat for many One of the areas they will be focusing on is hundreds of Gouldian Finches flying in different animals, including Gouldian Finches. miluwindi, the rocky, sandstone hills of the King destroyed the food source for B rainbow flocks across his country as late Leopold Ranges in the north of Bunuba muwayi.