Bushfire recovery project.
The QFBC, in collaboration with a range of partners, is supporting landholders and communities directly affected by the 2019 bushfires through a targeted capacity building program as part of Phase 2 of Healthy Land and Water’s Bushfire Recovery project.
These capacity building and wildfire mitigation activities are being delivered to private landholders in the Noosa Catchment, Carneys Creek and Rosevale Tarome areas in the Scenic Rim Catchment.
The project is improving fire and biodiversity management and conserving the outstanding universal values of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area and priority threatened species and threatened ecological communities.
Actions & outcomes
As part of the program, the QFBC is delivering ten community engagement events, including fire information nights, fire management planning workshops and workshops to facilitate the development of the sub-catchment fire management plan.
Healthy Land and Water utilised a suite of mapping tools, engagement strategies and knowledge to identify potential target properties and engagement locations, including Queensland Government risk mapping, Healthy Land and Water’s rapid ecological and landscape mapping, threatened species mapping, land manager relationships and key stakeholder consultation.
The team is working with more than 36 community groups, landholders, farmers, and Traditional Owners to develop a sub-catchment fire management plan and fire management maps and action plans tailored to private landholders’ property, conservation values and priorities.
At the fire information nights and fire planning workshops, landholders had the opportunity to design and construct their own property-based fire management plans and discuss recommended fire regimes, soil erosion, fire trails, mitigation zones, fuel loads, fire preparedness and mapping.
Fire management actions, directed by these property-level fire management plans, are being delivered across approximately 850 hectares. These actions include:
- Improved fire lines and breaks.
- Fuel load reduction works.
- Installation of fire control infrastructure.
- Asset protection zones.
- Defined prescribed burn areas.
- Cultural heritage assessments.
- Evaluation surveys.
- Reporting.
This work is aimed at building capacity, reducing wildfire risk and supporting tenure blind fire management. The project is providing a unique framework for landholders to incorporate the protection of threatened species and ecological communities into their fire management.
The capacity-building activities have been very well supported by the community and stakeholders alike, with fire planning workshops booked out at each location.
