PROFILE FOR ECOLOGICAL FIRE MANAGEMENT OF DAUAN ISLAND June 2013 Prepared by 3D Environmental with assistance of Peter Stanton for Torres Strait Regional Authority Land and Sea Management Unit Cover image: 3D Environmental (2013) Contents 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 3 1.1 The Need for Fire Management .................................................................................... 3 1.2 The Situation on Dauan ................................................................................................ 4 1.3 The Situation Elsewhere ............................................................................................... 5 1.4 The Value of Effective Fire Management ..................................................................... 7 1.5 The Nature of Effective Fire Management .................................................................... 8 2. A PROPOSED APPROACH TO FIRE MANAGEMENT ON DAUAN ISLAND .......... 9 2.1 Principles for Effective Fire Management ................................................................... 11 2.2 Fire Behaviour of Dauan Island Habitats .................................................................... 14 2.1.1 Category 1, 1a ..................................................................................................... 14 2.1.2 Category 2 ........................................................................................................... 16 2.1.3 Category 3 ........................................................................................................... 16 2.1.3 Category 4 ........................................................................................................... 17 3. GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR PROGRESSION TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF EFFECTIVE FIRE MANAGEMENT OF THE ISLAND AS ONE UNIT. ..................... 20 3.1 The Ultimate Goal ....................................................................................................... 20 4. A PROPOSED FIRE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM FOR DAUAN ISLAND ................ 22 4.1 Proposed Program for Year 1 – 2013, 2014 ............................................................... 23 4.2 Proposed Program for Following Years ...................................................................... 26 5. REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 29 6. APPENDIX ......................................................................................................................... 30 A1. FIRE MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK ........................................................................ 30 A2. FIRE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY ............................................................................ 31 A2-1 General introduction to the approach to fire management ........................................ 31 A2-2 Ecological description of the island ............................................................................ 31 A2-3 The history of fire in the island’s landscape ............................................................... 32 A2-4 Specific requirements for asset protection ................................................................ 32 A2-5 Fire management requirements for weeds ................................................................ 36 A2-6 Management requirements for cultural sites. ............................................................ 36 A2-7 Management requirements for vegetation communities. ........................................... 37 A2-8 Management requirements for sensitive species. ..................................................... 41 A2-9 Operational tasks ....................................................................................................... 42 A2-10 Monitoring and reporting .......................................................................................... 43 A2- 11 Dauan Island burn plan ........................................................................................... 43 2 1. INTRODUCTION Dauan is one of several inhabited islands in the Torres Strait on which fire plays an integral role in maintaining its natural habitats. As such, this document details the requirements for ecological fire management on the island, as much as they can be ascertained from current knowledge of the island habitats. It is intended that the practices and programs outlined in this report will be the responsibility of the rangers and therefore, to guide them as much as possible, these reports go, in some detail, into the history, theory, and practice of what will be referred to as prescribed burning. Particular emphasis is placed on its traditional aspects. Prescribed burning refers to the planned use of fire; it is not synonymous with the term “back- burning” which is sometimes used, and fuel-reduction burning is but one form of prescribed burning which is done with the much narrower aim of reducing the intensity and spread of unplanned fires (bushfires or wildfires). The report should be read in conjunction with similar reports for Moa and its nearest neighbour Saibai. The management of fire on these larger islands is considerably more complex, due largely to the greater diversity of habitats and landscape and as such these reports present a much more detailed synopsis of the rationale for burning and fire management in general. The island of Dauan, as for the majority of islands in the Torres Strait, has a mostly intact natural environment and sits in what has been identified as one of the most pristine parts of the world’s oceans. For this the thousands of years of stewardship of the area by the people of the Torres Strait must take much of the credit. 1.1 The Need for Fire Management Dauan sits on the geologic divide between continental Australia and lowland Papua New Guinea which is clearly visible from islands northern coastline. Dauan’s vegetation is the end product of at least 60 million years of evolution that would have seen gradual but continual change in its structure and species composition. Vegetation change would have been imposed by changing climate and changing landscape as mountains formed and were eroded, and the sea rose and fell. Ever present however, was fire, first ignited by lightning, and then by the firestick of man. Its influence would always have been dramatic as it sifted from the landscape those species which could not tolerate its varying regimes of frequency and intensity, and favoured others more tolerant. The arrival of man would have brought the most dramatic and rapid changes of all as infrequent but hot and widespread fires were replaced by frequent numerous and smaller ones. Man effectively took charge of fire to use it in many different ways to manage and shape the landscape to serve his own requirements of 3 safety, ease of access, and food supply. The anthropologist Rhys Jones (Jones, R. 1969) coined the term “firestick farming” to describe this process. Undoubtedly man shaped fire to serve his ends, and in the process fire shaped man as it changed the landscape and thus the way man adapted to live within it. Much of the islands land management customs have been adopted from the people of the Trans-Fly region in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG’s) southern lowlands , as have those on Saibai, Dauan’s nearest neighbour. Stronach (1999) gives some description to traditional anthropogenic use of fire in the Trans-Fly region of PNG, and to all intents and purposes mirrors usage by Aboriginal people on the Australian Mainland. As Stronach notes: “Traditionally, the people of the Trans-Fly combine subsistence hunter and gatherer and small scale cultivator lifestyles. Fire has been used extensively to manage their resources. Early burning is used to protect key-fire sensitive resources such as gardens and coconut and sago palm groves from damaging late fires. Fire is used opportunistically in hunting. Stands of taller grasses are burnt to concentrate and flush out bandicoots, wallabies and other species. This activity tends to produce a progressively burnt landscape beginning each dry season with small scale early burns and ending in small scale hot burns in relict patches of fuel. No attempt is made to control hunting fires once lit. This suggests a high degree of confidence that fires lit for one purpose will be useful in other ways or not be damaging. In discussing the use and effects of fire, indigenous people of the Trans-Fly express satisfaction at the ‘cleaning’ of land by fires, a sense of purpose also observed among the aboriginal people of northern Australia (Russell-Smith et al., 1997)”. Unlike Australian Aboriginals, indigenous people of the Trans-Fly and Dauan have in common been involved in small scale cropping and gardening. Such an important resource as a food garden would have warranted protection from hot fires. For whatever purpose and motive, there remains a critical need to maintain fire in the Dauan Island landscape. The most specific requirement is to maintain habitat for those plants and animals that are adapted to live and forage within the islands fire shaped environs. Because of the likely speed of habitat change, wholesale removal of fire from the island (if it were possible), would not allow the gradual adaptation of species to their changing environment and the end result would be a significant loss of habitats and with them likely many species of plants and animals. 1.2 The Situation on Dauan Dauan is an ecologically and