Conservation Advice Tas Ovata Brookeriana Forests and Woodlands
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Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) Threatened Ecological Communities APPROVED CONSERVATION ADVICE (INCORPORATING LISTING ADVICE) - Tasmanian Forests and Woodlands dominated by black gum or Brookers gum (Eucalyptus ovata / E. brookeriana) 1. The Threatened Species Scientific Committee (the Committee) was set up under the EPBC Act to give advice to the Minister for the Environment (the Minister) in relation to the listing and conservation of threatened ecological communities, including under sections 189, 194N and 266B of the EPBC Act. 2. The Committee conducted a listing assessment following the ecological community being placed on the 2013 Finalised Priority Assessment List. 3. The Committee provided its advice on the Tasmanian Forests and Woodlands dominated by black gum or Brookers gum (Eucalyptus ovata / E. brookeriana) ecological community to the Minister in 2017 and an updated version in June 2019. The Committee recommended that: the ecological community merits listing as Critically Endangered; and a recovery plan is not required for the ecological community at this time. 4. A draft conservation advice for this ecological community was made available for expert and public comment for a minimum of 30 business days. The Committee and Minister had regard to all public and expert comment that is relevant to the consideration of the ecological community for listing. 5. In 2019 the Minister accepted the Committee’s advice, adopted this document as the approved conservation advice and agreed no recovery plan is required at this time.The Minister amended the list of threatened ecological communities under section 184 of the EPBC Act to include the Tasmanian Forests and Woodlands dominated by black gum or Brookers gum (Eucalyptus ovata / E. brookeriana) ecological community in the critically endangered category. 6. At the time of this advice, this ecological community corresponds closely with two threatened ecological communities that are listed as threatened under the Tasmanian Nature Conservation Act 2002. 7. This conservation advice was based on the best available information at the time it was approved; this includes scientific literature, advice from consultations, and existing plans, records or management prescriptions for this ecological community. Shrubby woodland with Eucalyptus ovata at Sandfly Recreation Area. Seedling E. ovata Photo credits: Department of the Environment and Energy, Canberra TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CONSERVATION OBJECTIVE 4 The benefits and national importance of this ecological community 1. DESCRIPTION OF THE ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY 5 1.1. The ecological community 5 1.1.1. Name 1.1.2. Location and physical environment 1.1.3. Vegetative components 1.1.4. Faunal components 1.2. Relatonship to State vegetation classification systems 13 1.2.1. Caveat 1.2.2. TASVEG vegetation units 1.2.3. Tasmanian threatened native vegetation communities 2. IDENTIFYING AREAS OF THE NATIONAL ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY 16 PROTECTED UNDER NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT LAW 2.1. Introduction 16 2.2. Key diagnostic characteristics for the Black gum – Brookers gum 17 forest/woodland 2.3. Condition thresholds for the Black gum – Brookers gum forest/woodland 18 2.4. Further information to assist in determining the presence of the ecological 20 community and significant impacts 2.4.1. Defining a patch 2.4.2. Revegetated areas and areas of regeneration 2.4.3. Sampling protocol 2.4.4. Additional buffer zone around a patch 2.4.5. Surrounding environment, landscape context, and other guidance for avoiding and mitigating impacts 2.5. Area critical to the persistence of the ecological community 23 3. SUMMARY OF KEY THREATS 24 4. RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE THREATENED SPECIES SCIENTIFIC 25 COMMITTEE 4.1. Recommendation on eligibility for listing against EPBC Act criteria 25 4.2. Recommendation on whether to have a Recovery Plan 26 5. PRIORITY CONSERVATION AND RESEARCH ACTIONS 27 5.1. Principles and standards 27 Approved Conservation Advice – Tasmanian Forests and Woodlands Dominated by Black Gum or Brookers Gum 2 5.2. Priority actions 27 5.2.1. Protect 5.2.2. Restore 5.2.3. Communicate – Engage with and Support 5.2.4. Research and Monitoring 5.3. Offsets 34 5.4. Existing plans/management prescriptions relevant to the ecological community 35 BIBLIOGRAPHY 37 APPENDICES APPENDIX A – LISTS OF KEY SPECIES 47 APPENDIX B – ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ECOLOGICAL 56 COMMUNITY B1. Relationships to other listed Matters of National Environmental Significance under the EPBC Act (RAMSAR wetlands, Heritage properties, threatened species) B2. Regional Forests Agreement B3. Corresponding vegetation / mapping units B4. Similar vegetation types to the ecological community B5. Tenure and extent of the ecological community in conservation reserves B6. Relationship to the Vulnerable Eucalyptus ovata – Callitris oblonga Forest B7. Existing protection under State and Local Government laws B8. Indigenous knowledge APPENDIX C – DESCRIPTION OF KEY THREATS 74 C1. Land clearing and impacts associated with fragmentation C2. Altered hydrological regimes, including salinity C3. Invasive species and diseases (weeds, feral animals, dieback) C4. Land management practices (e.g. fertiliser addition, grazing by livestock) C5. Inappropriate fire regimes C6. Hybridisation with plantation eucalypts C7. Climate change C8. Nationally listed key threatening processes APPENDIX D – DETAILED ASSESSMENT OF ELIGIBILITY FOR LISTING 93 AGAINST THE EPBC ACT CRITERIA Criterion 1 - Decline in geographic distribution Criterion 2 - Limited geographic distribution coupled with demonstrable threat Criterion 3 - Loss or decline of functionally important species Criterion 4 - Reduction in community integrity Criterion 5 - Rate of continuing detrimental change Criterion 6 - Quantitative analysis showing probability of extinction Overall conclusion Approved Conservation Advice – Tasmanian Forests and Woodlands Dominated by Black Gum or Brookers Gum 3 CONSERVATION OBJECTIVE To prevent further loss and degradation of the Tasmanian Forests and Woodlands dominated by black gum or Brookers gum (Eucalyptus ovata / E. brookeriana) ecological community, and help recover its biodiversity and function through protecting it from significant impacts as a Matter of National Environmental Significance under national environmental law, and by guiding implementation of management and recovery, consistent with the recommended priority conservation and research actions set out in this advice. This conservation advice contains information relevant to the conservation objective by: describing the ecological community and where it can be found; identifying the key threats to the ecological community; presenting evidence (listing advice) to support the ecological community being listed as nationally threatened under national environment law; and outlining the priority conservation and research actions that could stop decline and support its recovery. The benefits and national importance of this ecological community The Tasmanian Forests and Woodlands dominated by black gum or Brookers gum (Eucalyptus ovata / E. brookeriana) ecological community generally occurs on low-lying damp sites, including riverine habitats. These are key, ecologically important areas that are responsible for maintaining water quantity and quality and help to prevent soil erosion and salinity. Consequently, they provide habitat and resources for many native plants and animals, including breeding and foraging areas for birds and bats that help to regulate agricultural and urban pests. The ecological community’s important position and function in the landscape also has other social and economic benefits. These include shelter for stock and support for agricultural production by maintaining water tables, healthy soils and riverine landscapes, and recreational values. Natural landscapes provide a wide variety of ecosystem services that are difficult to prescribe purely in terms of monetary values (de Groot et al. 2012). Over the long term, resilient, intact ecosystems are more likely to retain their services plus adaptive capacity to sustain production of these services in the face of environmental disruptions, such as climate change. Such services are often impossible to replace when natural systems become too degraded and dysfunctional. Approved Conservation Advice – Tasmanian Forests and Woodlands Dominated by Black Gum or Brookers Gum 4 1. DESCRIPTION OF THE ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY The Tasmanian Forests and Woodlands dominated by black gum or Brookers gum (Eucalyptus ovata / E. brookeriana) ecological community is a type of eucalypt forest to woodland that is restricted to Tasmania and is associated with sites that are typically damp and/or poorly draining. The national ecological community has several variants, notably a major component dominated by Eucalyptus ovata (black gum) and another dominated by E. brookeriana (Brookers gum). This section describes the assemblage of native species that characterises the ecological community throughout its range at the time of listing. More comprehensive species lists are in Appendix A. However, even these do not include all of the species that make up the ecological community and many sites may have species that are not mentioned in this Conservation Advice. The ecological community also includes fungi and cryptogamic plants; however, these are less well documented. Characteristic species may be abundant or rare and only a subset of the complete list of species recorded in known