(the following is the transcript of a talk Spencer gave at the Save the Steve Irwin Forest Day 23/01/2015, support this great group and the work they are doing http://iconicforest.wix.com/sunshinecoast & https://www.facebook.com/groups/1534664276756435/)
” Ok, jokes aside so we are talking about Habitat Connectivity, so let’s start with a definition.
My broad sweeping definition of Habitat Connectivity is that it is the ability for the Flora, Fauna and Fungi that make up our Australian Native Ecosystems to move through the wider landscape for the purposes of locating the resources necessary for their life cycles, e.g. habitat niches, food, reproduction.
To give us a bit of perspective I’d like to take you for a bit of time travelling back to about 7 Generations ago, the place we now stand on was a landscape in which there was no line between the human landscape and the natural landscape. Australia’s’ Native Ecosystems, “the wilderness” was in fact shaped and managed by the Indigenous people of Australia for tens of thousands of years – literally since the dawn of time, for their physical and spiritual needs and for the benefit of the land itself. This forest is a human shaped landscape. If we listen, there is story to be told, a law to be lived by that says you can live in this country, that we, call Australia and that we can have our cake and that the wildlife gets to eat it too! Thank you to the indigenous people of this place, past and present for shaping and creating that which we new arrivals call Australia’s Native Ecosystems.
About 7 generations ago my ancestors whose name I bear lived in the high country of Northern England on what we call the Moors or Pennines. This is pre the industrial revolution; these people are farmers and weavers of wool living in small villages and towns but the rapid changes of the industrial revolution are about to trigger a change in the way of life that will change the land dramatically, with mining, deforestation and social upheaval (sound familiar…) throughout Britain that sees many of your ancestors being sent or emigrating to Australia either then or even more recently as in my case in 1977.
In less than 7 generations, in less than 140 years, the landscape of the Sunshine Coast has been transformed. Over 60% of the Native Ecosystems have been cleared, what is left is fragmented and fractured by poor land use and roadways that give no real thought to the survival and preservation of our precious and unique Australian Native Ecosystems. This is an embarrassing story for a ‘first world’ country. Forests like this are our Amazon, are our SE Asian Rainforest. There is no real excuse in this day and age for the continued loss of our Native Ecosystems, we have cleared enough land, and we just need to use the land we have cleared more wisely. There is more than enough cleared land on the Sunshine Coast for all of our needs – even with a growing population. Our remaining fragments of Australia’s Native Ecosystems need to preserved, enhanced and connected and managed for survival, for the very health of ourselves and the land we call home and not just for our amenity value.
In less than 7 generations the human population of the Sunshine Coast has been transformed and exploded, with most of us arriving here in last generation. Most of you will be from somewhere else, but we now call this place home. If we look forward 7 generations and our demands on the land continue as they have in the past, what will we be leaving our descendants… as the stewards of the present we need to preserve and enhance our native ecosystems, and not continue on with projects like this that result in the death of a thousand cuts to our remaining Native Ecosystems.
The focus of our work at Brush Turkey Enterprise is to recreate and maintain connectivity of Australia’s native ecosystems, through our own project work and through assisting landholders to do the same. But no matter how good our work is in looking after the fragments, if we as a society continue to construct roadways that have major impacts on habitat connectivity not only within their actual footprint, but on a much wider landscape scale, then much of the work we do on the smaller pieces is almost palliative care for the living dead as the landscape connectivity needed to keep these ecosystems and the species that live within, is fatally compromised. This is human connectivity at the expense of habitat connectivity and it doesn’t have to be that way, with planning and recognising the value of our Native Ecosystems we can have both.
End of rant for now, here’s some statistics about our Sunshine Coast Native Ecosystems.
- We live in one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, in an area known as the McPherson-Macleay overlap of Biodiversity communities
- We have 1600 species of Native Plants on the Sunshine Coast, 3500 in SE QLD!
- We have 91 Endangered Plant Species on the Sunshine Coast
- We have 700 recorded species of vertebrate fauna on the Sunshine Coast
- We have 68 Endangered Fauna Species on the Sunshine Coast
- We have ??? Fungi – who knows, need some serious research!
Some Flora and Fauna Statistics for this Forest:
- Approx 300 Native flora identified thus far
- It contains Federally Threatened community of Lowland Subtropical Rainforest
- It contains State Endangered and Of Concern Ecosystems
- It contains Federally listed Koalas, Wallum Sedge Frog, Giant Barred Frog, Grey Headed Flying Fox
- It contains State Listed, Tusked Frog, Wallum Froglet, Green-thighed Frog, Elf Skink, Richmond Birdwing Butterfly, Glossy Black Cockatoo, Grey Goshawk, Square Tailed Kite
In summing up, Can we have our connectivity while maintaining habitat connectivity?
- We must maintain existing habitat connectivity. Due to existing fragmentation habitat connectivity is tenuous at best. Every bit of connectivity remaining is crucial.
- We must re-establish habitat connectivity between remnants. Every effort needs to be made to reconnect our remaining remnants, through habitat reconstruction and the retrofitting of roadways to be wildlife friendly in areas that traverse high value habitat.
- All new roads should preserve habitat connectivity. This should be a genuine undertaking not token gestures , for example one single rope fauna crossing in 2km, no fauna fencing and no fauna underpasses etc… in the previous Steve Irwin Way Road upgrades. While on the subject of token gestures, it’s likely that the rope fauna crossing only services the territories of two possums, one in the north and one in the south…
- Be wary of Vegetation Management Offsets – do they work? There is no scientific proof as yet that we can replicate the complexity of an existing ecosystem.
Thank you for your time, thank you for the organisers and defenders of this forest who have invited me here today to speak” .
Spencer Shaw 23rd of January 2015
