ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION work underway in the rare Byron Bay Graminoid Clay Heath includes selective burning.
The work also includes removal of weeds and removal of non-native and native trees.
Byron Shire Council’s appointed project officer and ecologist Andy Baker said the Byron Clay Heath is a rare plant community found in only a two locations in Byron and Tweed Shires and provides unique habitat to a range of threatened flora and fauna.
“Less than 5% of the heathland remains and it is now listed as an Endangered Ecological Community in NSW.
“It is also a significant cultural landscape for the Bundjalung of Byron Bay Arakwal People who used fire to maintain the heathland as a vital source of bush foods including edible tubers,” he said.
Why does it need restoration?
Clay Heath remnants are threatened by environmental weeds, fragmentation and stormwater pollution.
However, the biggest threat to the heathland’s future is the lack of fire over recent decades.
Mr Baker said nearly all heath plants need fire to reproduce.
“Without fire many species are at risk of local extinction. Plus fire also inhibits weed and trees from spreading.
“Without restoration, all Clay Heath is likely to be lost by 2040,” he said.
The Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water (DECCW) list tree encroachment as one of the main threats to clay heath.
How will the project help the Clay Heath?
Byron Shire Council’s manager of environmental and economic Planning, Sharyn French, said the ecological restoration work is already underway and guided by a detailed management plan that aims to restore the Clay Heath and the natural processes it relies on to survive.
The aim of the plan is to restore the structure, function, dynamics and integrity of the clay heath vegetation and the habitats they support.
Council’s acting Natural Environment Policy and Projects Officer, Greg Shanahan said the project involves:
- Eradication of environmental weeds such as Camphor Laurel, Bitou Bush, Winter Senna, Singapore Daisy and Molasses Grass.
- Undertaking ecological burns at selected sites. Some sites have already had successful ecological burns in 2008, 2009 and 2015 with the help of NSW Fire & Rescue and the NSW Rural Fire Service. Council plans to undertake additional controlled burns on other sites in the future.
- Control of trees displacing the clay heath. Some weed and native trees shading out the Clay Heath are being removed or killed in-situ. This is being carried out in a targeted manner to secure core areas of clay heath vegetation where the opportunity to undertake burns is restricted.
The work is being undertaken as part of the Byron Clay Heath restoration project with funding from the NSW Environmental Trust.