Fire exclusion and the changing landscape of Queensland’s Wet Tropics Bioregion 2. The dynamics of transition forests and implications for management

Summary

Meeting all four natural criteria for United Nations World Heritage listing, the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area that covers 61% of the remaining vegetation of the bioregion conserves, on a biodiversity basis, habitats ‘containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation’. As discussed in an accompanying paper by the same authors, the Wet Tropics Bioregion faces a level of habitat change unprecedented in threat and scale and manifested in the transition of sclerophyll forests and woodlands to closed forest habitats, a change attributable to the absence of fire or reduction in its frequency.

The implications of habitat change for certain threatened species and ecosystems present a challenge to conserving the ark of biodiversity the Wet Tropics represents. Evidence indicates that the dominant reason for these changes in vegetation patterns is the reduction in fire or its exclusion across a bioregion with the highest rainfall of the nation. It is clear that the bioregion is suffering and with present trends, will continue to suffer, a major loss of habitat diversity.

Keywords:

• management
• vegetation
• wildlife
• biodiversity
• habitats
• ecosystems
• fire
• fire ecology
• change
• World Heritage Area
• Queensland

Acknowledgements

This paper, and a complementary one, would never have been completed without the encouragement of Ian Bevege, Roger Underwood and Jeremy Russell-Smith. Their critical comments on a first draft led to major changes in presentation and a better product. The blame for any deficiencies now lies entirely with the authors. Peter Stanton would also like to express his gratitude to his wife, Karen, who typed his handwritten manuscripts and provided much-needed quality control.