KOALA PROJECT UPDATE

Biamanga Board

June 23^rd 2017

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Chris Allen

Senior Threatened Species Officer

NSW Office of Environment and Heritage

Koala Monitoring Program

• Working with LALC staff we have assessed >300 grid-sites to the west of Wapengo Lake since 2016
• Results appear to suggest a reduction in occupancy rates
• But we did find evidence of four/five females with young
• In August we will be working in the sub-area to the north of the Murrah River

Koala Detector Dogs

• Two koala detector dogs trained by Steve Austin and managed by national parks joined us for a week in June 2016
• We found that our people were still better at finding koala scats than either of the dogs
• With more training and work in the field the dogs may be more able to find koala pellets and make a good contribution

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Murrah Flora Reserves Draft Plan of Management

• Plan approved by Steering Committee. Soon will be put on public exhibition.
• Really good contribution from Aboriginal representatives on the Committee
• This working plan supports a close and effective partnership with the Biamanga and Gulaga national parks boards that encourages Aboriginal connection to Country.
• Plan also supports a cultural burning program in the new reserves
• Field trip being planned in the next few weeks

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Mountain Parks Management Plan

Fire is a major threat to koalas. We will help protect them from fire by applying low intensity burns in small patches in appropriate locations surrounding identified areas of koala activity to provide low-fuel buffers against wildfire. Our traditional burning practices will help us achieve this. We will also carefully consider the location of koala activity areas when planning responses to wildfire and try to minimise the impacts of wildfire and back-burning in these areas.

A Burning Issue

• Areas used by koalas overlapped with those designated as Strategic Fire Advantage Zones (SFAZ)

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• Could SFAZ areas be redesigned to better protect life and property and koala assets?

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SFAZ Overlap

South Coast Fire Simulation Modelling 2016-17�

• University of Melbourne study

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• Tested the effectiveness of different hazard reduction burns over time

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• Modelled impact of wildfires

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• Quantified the reduction of fire impact to property and koala habitat

Rel. Probability of House Burn

Rel. Probability of

Koala Habitat Burn

Report of the Independent Review into the Decline of Koala Populations in Key Areas of NSW. NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer. December 2016

Key elements of a whole-of-government koala strategy:

• prioritise data gathering and research about populations, habitat and threats
• review and align the various legislative and management arrangements
• on-ground actions that improve connectivity and resilience against threats
• identify incentives for best practice new development
• establish a framework for on-going coordination and cooperation of land managers, policy makers, researchers and the community

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�Habitat Rehabilitation �South Coast 2017

• Large areas of post-logging regeneration
• SoS is funding trial regeneration techniques
• Aim to promote the regeneration of preferred koala tree species
• Research plots are in the new Flora Reserves and on Aboriginal and privately owned lands

Example Research Plot

E. longifolia seed tree present. No regeneration of this species in the surrounding area

Dense regeneration of Allocasuarina littoralis

Thinning at Selected Research Plots

Community-Led Habitat Rehabilitation

Building contour banks for seed balls

Narooma News

Making seed balls

Cultural Burning

• Can make an important contribution to managing and enhancing koala habitat in SENSW coastal forests
• Chief Scientist recommends importance of monitoring outcomes from applying fire

Looking ahead

• Continue monitoring program
• Support cultural burning initiatives
• Monitor results of habitat rehabilitation project and develop ongoing program
• Work with NSW Government Whole of Government Koala strategy
• Support community agency partnership

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Southeast NSW� �A few koalas �making a big difference

iKoala

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• Ikoala is a tool developed by the Uni of Canberra
• It is linked to the SENSW koala database which has the foundational RGb-SAT dataset for SENSW and the Strzelecki Ranges
• The tool has the capacity to automatically generate reports on koala distribution, and tree species and size-class preferences
• As we re-sample our RGb-SAT grid-sites and upload to the database, the tool can automatically report on trends in koala occupancy rates
• The database also contains information in regards to fuel-loads, canopy condition, stand density and age-class at each grid-site
• Analysis in regards to ecological changes resulting from management actions (and/or their absence) can also be undertaken to inform koala conservation initiatives