2021-06-08 P&E Agenda - Item 6 - Attachment 1 - Noosa Bushland Reserve Strategic Management Plan 2021-2026

      Protects 100 hectares of Commonwealth-listed Critically Endangered Subtropical Lowland
       Rainforests of Australia ecological community and 63.3 hectares of Commonwealth-listed
       Subtropical and Temperate Coastal Saltmarsh ecological community.
      Provide habitat for a diverse range of State and Commonwealth listed native fauna and
       flora, including Boronia keysii, the Shire’s floral emblem.

Similar to other areas of native vegetation in south-east Queensland, Noosa Council’s bushland
reserve network is facing a number of pressures that threaten its biodiversity values. Many of the
reserves within Noosa Shire are degraded to some extent and will require a large amount of effort
to restore them to an ecologically resilient condition.

The key pressures on these biodiversity values are:
    Pest animals directly impacting on native fauna and flora populations;
    Invasive plants displacing native vegetation and transforming ecosystems;
    Nutrient and sediment pollution of waterways and wetlands with associated impacts on
      biodiversity;
    Inappropriate fire regimes. Insufficient fire activities to maintain the 88.5% fire adapted
      vegetation communities within reserves;
    Interference to vegetation from adjoining property owners;
    Impacts on reserve integrity from unauthorised recreational vehicle use;
    Wildlife/resident conflicts.


1.2    Reserve prioritisation
To ensure the shire’s bushland reserve network is managed to the highest standard possible, it is
necessary to prioritise where the finite resources are best allocated to achieve its objectives.

The prioritisation process used within this plan has addressed the biodiversity values (taken largely
from the Noosa Biodiversity Assessment Report), waterway values, carbon sink values and social
values of each reserve. The feasibility for each reserve to be restored to an ecologically resilient
state, with consideration of realistic operational resource availability, is a particularly relevant
consideration and has been identified for each reserve as part of the preparation of this plan. This
and other data was determined by seeking the views of the Council Stakeholder Group who
manage the entirety of the bushland reserve network and hold in-depth knowledge of the majority
of reserves.

The philosophy behind prioritising reserves for their feasibility to recover recognises that it is best
and most cost-efficient to manage the more ecologically resilient reserves first, as better
biodiversity outcomes can be achieved with the limited program resourcing available to manage
the reserve estate. Implicit in this philosophy is the reality that some of the smaller highly-degraded
reserves in urban areas, while still possessing some biodiversity, waterway and social values, may
not be able to be restored to an ecologically resilient condition in the near future.


1.3    Purpose of the Plan
The Noosa Bushland Reserves Strategic Management Plan 2021 – 2026 (The Plan) outlines the
values and management issues within Council’s bushland reserve network.

The Plan provides recommendations as to how Council should manage its bushland reserve
network over the next five years to achieve the bushland reserve network’s objectives as
presented in section 2. In addition to refining and defining the management planning framework for
the Natural Areas Program, three reserve management program categories (‘Protect’, ‘Enhance’,
and ‘Monitor’) have been allocated to the prioritised reserves with associated planning
documentation required identified.


Noosa Bushland Reserves Strategic Management Plan 2021 – 2026                                   Page 6