2022-05-10 Planning and Environment Committee Meeting Agenda

PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                        10 MAY 2022


Project outputs are summarised in Attachment 2. The extent and distribution of REs before and
after the fine-scale vegetation assessment work was done is shown in Attachments 3 and 4.
Whilst a large number of changes to the Biodiversity Overlay were made, the area covered by
these adjustments was relatively small, attesting to the accuracy of the overlay in terms of spatial
coverage. Overlay additions to include several small patches of poorly represented regional
ecosystems in the urban footprint (RE12.2.13) have been recommended and are under
consideration.
A review of Land for Wildlife property reports across the shire has identified that RE changes are
required on 58 properties. Map edits for these properties is ongoing.
A number of hollow bearing trees (50), Glossy black cockatoo feed trees (53) and koala scat
locations (4) were geo-located during field surveys for incorporation into Council databases. As a
result of this project, the location of 30 rare and threatened fauna and flora species has also been
added to Council databases and forwarded to the Queensland Government’s WildNET team for
incorporation into state databases.
The information collected during this project has been through the state’s rigorous quality and
reliability controls and will be incorporated into version 13 of the Regulated Vegetation
Management maps, to be released in 2023.
3.     Future Work
The following work is still outstanding:
     Whilst the project has focused on peri-urban areas that are most likely subject to development
      application and bushfire risk, ideally the work would recommence to complete the 70% balance
      of the shire.
     Given the inconsistent resolution across the shire with respect to geology and soil mapping,
      further soil surveys should be commissioned to cover the areas that are not covered by
      existing datasets i.e. the Soils and Land Resources of the Cootharaba Catchment (, Soil
      Landscapes of the Cooloola Noosa River Area (CSIRO); and the Land Resource Assessment
      - Curra to Imbil Lowlands (DES).
     Whilst national parks were not included in the project, some areas were surveyed to avoid
      having discontinuous alluvial corridors in proximity to urban centres. More comprehensive
      surveys of national parks are required.
     Some of the RE map revisions have implications for fire management and will need to be
      discussed with fire management officers from Council and QPWS. Bushfire hazard mapping
      will require updating.
     The small number of hollow bearing trees identified during field surveys and the relatively
      undeveloped structure of many vegetation communities indicates that despite having an
      incredible regeneration potential, much of Noosa’s vegetation is relatively youthful, probably
      in the 30-80 year old range. Remnant vegetation by definition includes ‘old growth’
      vegetation, however ‘old growth’ is more than remnant. Old growth vegetation possesses as
      yet unquantified diversity and resilience and should be prioritised for conservation. A locally-
      refined old growth vegetation layer could be developed for this purpose.
     Further detailed surveys of the previously unmapped subtropical rainforest polygons should
      be undertaken as part of a shire-wide assessment of threatened species and their habitat.
In addition it is noted that the data is fundamental to monitoring change as per the Noosa Council
Environment Strategy including:
     Regular monitoring of RE change
     No net loss of vegetation coverage target.
It is noted that Noosa Council is leading by example, and will join only two other shires in south
east Queensland that have 1:25,000 vegetation mapping. Gains in local accuracy of vegetation

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