Flying Fox Statement Of Management Intent

Yeah, great. Thanks for everyone attending today. So we're seeking environmental services seeking final endorsement on the flying fox Statement of Management Intent. To statement of management articulate Noosa Shire Council's approach to flying fox management. Now that's across Council land, private land and also state owned land. The purpose of the Statement of Management Intent too is just to provide that guidance to all the different stakeholders across the Noosa Shire on how Noosa Council plans to manage flying foxes moving into the future so that's providing advice to residents, landholders, stakeholders whether it be you know businesses or health facilities and whatever it is it's just to provide that overall guidance on the framework around flying fox management and how Council will approach that moving forward. A little bit of a background on flying foxes across the Noosa Shire just quickly we currently have around 10 active roosts across the Shire now that number is variable flying fox roosts are highly dynamic it can change overnight out of the 10 active roosts that we have at the moment around 8 demonstrates some level of community conflict it may be low or it may be high it just depends on the site and the numbers of the flying foxes relative to residential properties and other businesses and other stakeholders so across the Shire too we have bit a of an interesting dynamic and this is not just across Noosa this is South East Queensland as a whole we have two species of flying foxes the grey headed and the black flying fox which are permanently reside within the Noosa year round we also have a third species of flying fox called the little red flying fox now these do occur over the Noosa Shire around those warmer months so anywhere from November to April when they do arrive at certain locations they can have great impacts on residents or stakeholders surrounding flying fox roost just because of the numbers that we can see it's not uncommon to see anywhere from 50 to 400,000 little red flying foxes occasionally in flux fluxes in areas across South East Queensland we haven't had too many over the last couple of years we had some major influxes of little reds back in 2015 and 2016 at Wallace Park Noosaville recent influx we had was at Waratah Reserve earlier this year where we had around 70 000 flying foxes um I may add though the little red flying do only stay for around that six to eight weeks mark at a maximum before they migrate out west again so they're a different situation than I guess what we face year round across the Shire now why does Council require a SoMI? Well that's because the State government delegated flying fox management responsibilities to local councils in 2021 so state government devolved that count that responsibility Council manage flying foxes within urban flying fox management areas which basically cover all of the urbanised areas across local governments within Queensland as part of that transition the State government also established a grants program so that kicked off in 2021 it was a three-year grants program which offered around one and a half to two million dollars for local governments to implement I guess to transition to that management approach so that was for the generation of statement of management intents, risk management actions, developing site specific risk management plans so the SoMI the Statement of Management Intent is the overall arching Council policy approach for client boxes but that's at a regional context under that we're looking at site specific risk management plans that we need to develop for high-conflict risk. I should note too that the grants program is a little bit limited in fact that it only offers a 50/50 split for funding of local governments with a population above 50,000 so that is the Noosa Shire Council situation so any projects that we elect to chase under that grants program between the State and 2021 when the it's a 50/50 contribution Council since state devolved that responsibility over to Council we have generated a fine fox statement of management in turn which here to discuss today and we've also generated four site-specific flying fox roost management plans so we have one now for Wallace Park Noosaville we have one for Waratah Reserve Tewantin we roost located out of Kin Kin called Keyes Creek we also have one for a roost located at Cooroy next to an aged care facility. Moving back to the SoMI Council did endorse this document back in May 2022 for the purpose of community consultation since that was endorsed we've undertaken an extensive consultation program over the last 12 months that's included obviously publication on our Your Say Noosa survey we've advertised that opportunity for the community to provide feedback through the you know obviously councils media and comms avenues Facebook social media etc we've also targeted the in daruss where were developing our site-specific management plans for so we're inviting those residents to not only provide feedback on the site-specific risk management plans but at the same time have a read at the same me understand okay know read that document first how it sits and presents that overall framework and guidance for stakeholders and that was really productive because we were actually able to apply the SoMI in a real-life situation at conflict roost so as I said two sort of sectors to the consultation process. The wider community also Noosa option and then we went to the site specific roost applications. So in detail provided the results within the Council report so I won't go through every it's every page of that report but the main outcomes that were viewed we're here to discuss today is main feedback that we got from the consultation progress program through the Your Say Noosa surveys and the application at site roos was that originally within the Statement of Management Intent the SoMI we used level of conflict to guide Council through the transitioning of actions so within the original SoMI we had we basically classified roos as low medium or high conflict and from there that would trigger councils approach and moving down the management actions so management actions can include things like monitoring of it can include things of application of Noosa Council's flying fox subsidy program for residents it can move into the generation of site-specific roos management plans and then from there we can go into potentially works buffer work so trimming of vegetation etc just a little bit of an overview there but you issue with having conflict as our main guide for Council to transition through these management approaches is that conflict is very subjective obviously so conflict can be different for people living a flying fox roost some people actually really enjoy having flying foxes next to their property other people it's not what they're after and that's fair enough too so the idea of having that conflict there it's very difficult to attribute an accurate level of conflict for a roost as well because roosts move around within the footprint and they can affect different properties at different times with greater impacts we can have residents that may work from home or they may you know be out all day so it's not really impacting their day-to life we didn't view that as a suitable trigger within the SoMI so we've now updated the SoMI to reflect other councils approaches where they've actually regardless of trigger level we've gone through a stage management action approach so if we have a that's roost exhibiting some level of conflict Council work through our staged approach now which is presented on page 10 within the Statement of Management Intent not within the report and that basically as I said so that approach allows a few things so firstly it promotes equity between stakeholders so councils applying the same approach across all of our flying foxes roost. It also, sorry yes as I said but basically having that stage does allow Council to provide that equity between different stakeholders so we can look at a roost we can say okay there's conflict observed at this roost we're going to action this conflict by going through a stage management approach now noting that doesn't prevent Council from recognising that at a particular roost potentially over overnight we've had a huge influx of flying foxes we may have a very high level of conflict the SoMI doesn't prevent Council from jumping through those stage management approaches to find the appropriate mitigation so that was the major outcome the of consultation process which was a fairly major change to the SoMI as I said removing that level of conflict as a trigger replacing it with a staged approach regardless of the situation and the risk dynamics probably.

And that the importance as I said it is a little bit you know there's a lot in this but as I said the Statement of Management Intent is the overall arch overarching document on how Council approaches flying foxes across the Shire when we get into actually looking at management options for specific roosts we need to have those site-based management plans which identify things like Camille mentioned in terms of actual proximity of flying foxes roosting to private property numbers. Triggers etc not possible within the SoMI we just have that stage management approach throughout there which may trigger the development of a site-based flying fox roost management plan if required uh of future the SoMI if it's endorsed the SoMI is highly important for Council to be able to again communicate our approach to flying fox management to stakeholders whether it be residents business owners whatever it may be schools etc it's also equally important to guide Council staff in the communications side things about how Council will manage flying foxes when we do get requests coming from the community it also provides guidance to those staff members on site as well so often we'll have natural areas staff working within proximity to flying fox roosts we get a lot of questions from the community about, hey what can Council do here what assistance can you provide at the moment we don't have that document that clearly says this is what Council will not do based on state and commonwealth legislation now that I also see the document as being a an assistance to Councillors and the executive team as well so this document will also provide that clear information for Councillors to distribute to their residents in terms of providing that initial guidance it also prevents the opportunity for potentially missing miscommunication to occur whether it be you know natural area staff members that may not have a complete understanding of flying fox management legislation it removes that potential for miscommunication to come into the play of things when we're dealing with the community and the residents and I think that's one of the most important thing was said to provide that clear and concise information. We've done a lot of work on our website recently as well so we've provided a lot of information within our website which we've referenced to within the SoMI so if people do want to dig down a little bit to find out additional information about our subsidy program about state legislation that Council's bound to our management approaches that about that information is now available on our website and people are directed from the SoMI to the website if they choose to have a look obviously we invite all residents to contact Council so if the further information is required commitments under the SoMI as it stands now as I mentioned earlier we do have four risk management plans current across the Noosa Shire so our commitments under the SoMI would be to the would be the continued implementation of those risk management plans obviously and also to provide that clear guidance to residents. So moving forward with the recommendations of this report that's in front of us here obviously I approve the SoMI for the purpose of implementation so that we can provide those clear directions to our community our staff members and councils and executive team. We're also noting within the report that environmental services would like to undertake a review of our subsidy program as well earlier I mentioned that Council does have a flying fox subsidy program some feedback during the consultation process was that program did not really satisfy the needs of some residents are very appreciative of the program as well I might add but I think it is timely for Council to have a look at that program review it Noosa Council's is actually one of three councils across the South East Queensland region that has a flying fox subsidy program it's not standard it's a very very valuable offering the Council has at the moment for the residents and it does help relieve a lot of stresses of flying foxes can cause but regardless of that it is probably time for a review on our subsidy program based on the feedback we've obtained. We also haven't quite got to the stage of communications with the broader community so flying fox management is all about that education across the community education. The understanding of about building flying foxes where they fit into you know our urban environment and natural environment and ultimately building a little bit more tolerance amongst the community to live with blind foxes at a times where there are no other options so that communications program is something Council hasn't implemented as yet there are other there are other councils across the region. Extremely well and they have actually seen really positive that do that positive outcomes for the residents and flying foxes and the environment as a whole so that's something Council would really like to look at doing environmental services if we do have the adequate resources there to deliver that in the future talking about resources we also are noting within the report that environmental services are seeking additional resources to implement the SoMI and also to action future requirements. Under the SoMI in the pipeline we do have a flying fox ruse management plan for Pinaroo Park that we'd like to get delivered to the community and also to align with other councils and the State government's recommendations we would like to have a what's called a regional flying fox management plan now as I said the SoMI sits at the higher level we have the ruse management plans underneath between that it would be great to have a regional flying fox management plan so that can go into specifics about how Council manages roosts across the Shire as a whole it can identify you know what triggers we may have between roosts if we get influxes it will also generate a procedure for influxes of little red flying foxes the benefits of that is obviously Council then has a firm procedure on how to deal with unexpected influxes avoiding of flying foxes presenting I guess cost opportunities and avoiding-jerk reactions that are you know can occur with flying foxes because as I said they can literally turn up overnight in their hundreds of thousands in locations and if Council doesn't have a SoMI and a supporting regional flying fox management plan we really have no justificational guidance on how we're going to deal with a future influx which I think is extremely important now I guess I have touched a little bit on the risks there but we do also hold some legislative risk if Council doesn't actually have a statement of management sense was I said that the aim of the statement of management tennis to provide that guidance to all stakeholders including Council staff and Councillors on how we manage flying foxes across the Noosa Shire so flying foxes are protected under the nature conservation act and the commonwealth legislation the EPBC Act as well so so without that's only there without the guidance and the legislative constraints clearly communicated to all stakeholders we do possess some legislative risk in terms of the flying fox management if we don't have procedures in place I should mention too that obviously I mentioned the grant program earlier that was over the last three years which was administered by the State to help local governments transition to flying fox management the State has just offered the an additional two million dollars worth of funding over the next three years to further allow councils to transition through that management delegation now um I guess without the appropriate resources and a statement of management and it's going to be very difficult for Council to make the most of those grant funding opportunities for items as I mentioned before a management plan for Pinaroo Park and a regional flying fox management plan and also that communications program that we'd like to um develop over the coming years so um I think that's covered most of it there so I guess I'll open it up to questions unless Ben or Camille would like to add anything further.

Tom Wegener1:04

Thank you. All in favour? Do you have this? We have no presentations, no deputations. We're looking at the reports for consideration by the committee and the first up is the flying fox statement of management and we have David Gorman here. Thank you. Welcome to give us an overview.