NSW WILDERNESS RED INDEX

Published by the Colong Foundation for Wilderness Ltd (September 1999)
2/332 Pitt Street Sydney 2000 ph 02 9261 2400; fax 029 299 5713
email keith@colongwilderness.org.au web site colongwilderness.org.au

Wilderness Declared:

Brogo Wilderness

Wadbilliga National Park;

South-East Forests National Park:

Yowrie Wilderness

Wadbilliga National Park;

Wilderness Not Declared:

Wadbilliga National Park;

South-East Forest National Park;

Freehold land;

DESCRIPTION:

The area comprises a series of deep valley heads. Most of the wilderness drains to the Brogo River system, carved into Devonian sediments and granites, where local relief reaches its maximum of 1,000m. The Brogo Gorge constitutes the largest pristine river catchment protected in the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service estate.

The Kybean Range to the west is the backbone of the wilderness area. The windswept range is densely covered in Grevillias, Banksias and Casuarinas, with extensive heaths of Casuarina nana. Surrounding this is a tableland forest comprised of Mountain Gum (Eucalyptus delegatensis) and Snow Gum (E. pauciflora) alliances.

The Brogo Gorge contains a wide variety of forest types varying with altitudinal gradients, ranging from Silvertop Ash (E. sieberi) in the higher regions to White Stringybark (E. globoidea/E. eugeniodes) and other more coastal species such as Rough-barked Apple (Angophora floribunda) at lower levels. Moist gullies have a complement of rainforest species including Lilly-pilly (Acmena smithii), Sweet pittosporum (P. undulatum) and the endemic rainforest emergent species Acacia baileyana.

The fanua of this remote area is poorly understood, although, significant animal species include the Wedge-tailed Eagle (Aquila audax).

LAND USE HISTORY:

HISTORY OF CONSERVATION MEASURES:

THREATS:

Wadbilliga Fire Trail (approx 20km) is a dry weather, loose surface road that currently separates Brogo Wilderness from the Tuross Wilderness also in Wadbilliga National Park;

Razorback Fire Trail (approx. 15km) follows the watershed between the Brogo and Wadbilliga Rivers (This trail does not have much popularity with off-road vehicles and horse riders. It should not have been treated by the NPWS as a boundary separating the declared Brogo and Yowrie wilderness areas);

Yankees Fire Trail (approx 8km) leads to an inholding at Yankees Flat. The trail has not been gated at the wilderness boundary, despite the area being designated as wilderness since 1983 (This trail allows vehicle incursion into Yankees Creek);

Nelson Creek Fire Trail (approx 15km);

Queens Pound Fire Trail (approx 5km) branches off Wadbilliga Fire Trail within the declared Yowrie Wilderness;

South-East Forests National Park also contains a number of trails now redundant due to transition from State Forest to National Park.

The environmental impacts of trails on wilderness areas are well known. These include: soil compaction and erosion; weed introduction and dissemination by NPWS or other vehicles; encouraging the ingress of ferals animal; facilitating arsonists that wish to start wildfires in remote areas; rubbish dumping; and impacts related to off-road vehicle use and horseriding.

Recommendations: In addition to their severe environmental impacts, maintenance of management trails in wilderness areas does not comply with the management principles laid down in the Wilderness Act. The Razorback Trail that fragments the Brogo Wilderness should be closed as it is replicated by the Wedbilliga trail to the north. The Razorback trial serves little management purpose as the wilderness area is currently surrounded by perimeter trails and these should be adequate.

Over burning causes severe damage to rugged wilderness catchments. The ground cover that binds the soil is burnt leading to massive sheet erosion, as the next rains will strip away the thin soils of these areas. Streams then fill with gravel and silt. Fires also wipe out fauna populations and destroy old growth vegetation. Often it is these very oldest plants that provide most of the nesting and roosting places. The assertion that Australia’s forest land was once all some sort of grass land and that it should be burnt more often to mirror Aboriginal burning practices is incorrect. Dr John Benson is adamant that "most forests and woodlands of Australia would not have been subject to frequent (less than ten-year) burns".

Recommendations: The protection of wilderness values in fire management plans needs to be a priority. During fire emergencies bulldozers should not be allowed to scar the scenery by cutting fire control lines on steep slopes. All too often these measures fail to contain a wildfire. Decisions on damaging suppression practices should be addressed during management planning, not in a fire crisis. Except for fire trails in perimeter areas, trails constructed during fire fighting operations should be closed and rehabilitated immediately following the operation.

Fuel-reduction burns should be undertaken where they are most effective, that is close to the assets being protected (eg. rural dwellings). Most wildfires burn into parks, not the other way around, and broad-area control burns of wilderness are ineffective in controlling such external fires.

The best prescription to avoid fires in wilderness areas is to confine management trails to the edge of the national park, to prevent the spread of fire from outside. External management trails will prevent fire spreading to adjoining areas. Where absolutely necessary, helicopter landing areas could be cleared for fire control.

Recommendations: The inholding should be voluntarily acquired as soon as possible through the Dunphy Fund. Where a land owner is unwilling to sell or enter into a wilderness conservation agreement with the Minister for the Environment, local councils, which are obliged to consider wilderness values when considering development proposals, may place conditions which protect wilderness values when granting a development consent. Resumption is only a last resort where major threats to wilderness are posed by development.

Recommendations: Controlling coastal development and managing the water demand of downstream users would obviate the need for further dams. Introduction of the user pays principle would discourage current waste of water and lead to a drop in demand. Recycling of water, already an economic proposition for some industrial users, would prevent the one-way flow of valuable fresh water into the ocean, and reduce the need for bigger dams. Recommendations for alternative ways of meeting water supply needs are given by Grunmuller and Bacher (1991) and Macquarie University Graduate School of the Environment (1992).

Recommendations: There is some evidence that Critical Body Weight Range (200-5000g) macropods, such as the Parma Wallaby and Rufous Bettong which are particularly at risk from fox predation, are able to persist in moist high quality forests in which dingos are present but foxes are absent. One theory suggests that CWR species persist where dingos are common and actively exclude foxes Although dingos prey upon many macropod species, predation has not been shown to have a regulatory effect on these populations. Baiting reduces numbers of both foxes and dingos, but foxes may recover more rapidly and replace dingos in the ecosystem.

Baits can also kill other carnivores such as Tiger Quolls. The use of 1080 (sodium flouroacetate) baits, which cause death through internal bleeding, convulsions and nervous system collapse over a thirty minute to two hour period, should be abandoned. Programmes to control dingoes should only be undertaken on adjoining properties, only after there is substantial evidence that numbers of sheep are being taken and that other methods, such as removing lambing ewes, have not proved effective.

Similar conditions of evidence should apply to the regulation of macropod populations within the NPWS reserve area and its surroundings.

CONTACT ORGANISATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS

RELEVANT COLONG BULLETIN ARTICLES:

Bulletin 130, p2 "Support the South East Forests Protection Bill!".

Bulletin 131, p2 "Wilderness Window Dressing".

Bulletin 132, p6. "Bega Swamps Preserved".

Bulletin 135, p3 "Saving the Bilby".

Bulletin 148, p10 "Ten new NSW National Parks - one small step for conservation".

Bulletin 151, p6 "Labor’s Wilderness Moratorium".

Bulletin 169, p5-6 "Eden Forest Test - Conservation or Woodchips".

Bulletin 172, "The Forest Fandango".

Return to NSW Wilderness Index