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Forestry Tasmania’s landscape scale management of swift parrot breeding habitat in the Southern Forests and on South Bruny Island.
Summary:
Forestry Tasmania, the Department of Primary Industries, Parks and Water and Environment (DPIPWE) and the Forest Practices Authority (FPA) have all recognised that landscape-scale strategic approaches to managing breeding habitat are needed for conservation of the endangered swift parrot. This need was highlighted by the 2007/08 breeding season when over half of the swift parrot population was estimated to have bred in the Southern Forests, in a forest type and area not previously considered important for breeding. Previous conservation efforts for swift parrots had concentrated on the protection of potential foraging habitat (mainly grassy blue gum forests) and known nesting sites.
In 2008 Forestry Tasmania, in consultation with DPIPWE scientists, responded to the new information on breeding habitat in the Southern Forests by identifying five Swift Parrot Important Breeding Areas (SPIBAs) in the Southern Forests. It also began developing a draft Interim Three-year plan for swift parrot on State forest in the Southern Forests and on South Bruny Island for potential implementation from July 2009.
Meanwhile, the Forest Practices Authority has been developing a Swift Parrot Habitat Planning Guideline for the retention of important components of swift parrot habitat on private and public subject to activities covered by the forest practices system. This guideline may expand the concept of SPIBAs to include additional areas to those originally identified in 2008. The FPA guideline is still a ‘work-in progress’ although interim guidelines for notifying the FPA of coupes within the potential breeding habitat of the swift parrot were issued by the Chief Forest Practices Officer in December 2009.
An on-going process of strategic plan development by DPIPWE is under way for swift parrots on all tenures, which will include additional activities, such as subdivisions, not regulated by the forest practices system. A first iteration of DPIPWE’s Strategic Species Plan for the Swift Parrot will be prepared by June 2010. Further detailed population and habitat modelling should enable the Strategic Species Plan to be finalised by June 2012.
Forestry Tasmania’s draft Interim Three-year plan for swift parrot on State forest in the Southern Forests and on South Bruny Island (Forestry Tasmania 2009a) is the first landscape scale strategic plan developed for swift parrot, and it provides a useful model in the development of future landscape scale plans for this species. The interim plan is designed to protect significant swift parrot breeding areas whilst also providing some planning certainty for the forest industry. The interim plan prescribes:
After due consideration, the DPIPWE and FPA indicated that they were reluctant to endorse the interim plan for a full three years, primarily because of their need to develop broader plans and guidelines within this time period. However, these agencies recognised eight coupes in years 1 and 2 of the interim plan that pose little risk to swift parrot conservation and could proceed in accordance with the plan prescriptions. They also recognised another 14 coupes identified in the plan’s risk assessment (Forestry Tasmania 2009b), which are outside the 2008 SPIBAs described in the plan but are within larger SPIBAs being developed by the FPA, which can proceed under the normal process of Forest Practices Plan preparation and approval (Forestry Tasmania 2009c).
Forestry Tasmania has suspended further development of the draft interim plan, in order to allow other processes being managed by the DPIPWE and FPA to be finalised. However it is making the draft plan available to interested parties as an example of a practical strategic landscape approach for the management of swift parrots on State forest in the Huon District. It includes initiatives that may have relevance for the development of broader plans for other areas of State forests and for other tenures.
Forestry Tasmania’s conservation planners and scientists will continue to work cooperatively with the DPIPWE and FPA on developing practical strategic approaches to managing the swift parrot, and will continue to support strategic breeding surveys that further increase our knowledge of, and conservation management of, the species breeding habitat requirements.
