In Australia, bushland is a blanket term for land which supports remnant vegetation or land which is disturbed but still retains a predominance of the original floristics and structure. [1]
Human survival in bushland has a whole mythology evolving around it, with the stories of Aboriginal trackers and bushrangers deeply entrenched in Australian folklore. Bushland has been a traditional source of wood for fuel and bushfood. [2]
Bushland provides a number of ecosystem services including the protection of water quality, stopping erosion, acting as a windbreak, and trapping nutrients. [3] Bushland is prone to bushfires. This presents a challenge to authorities as infrastructure and habitations encroach into bushland areas. [4]
Until recently Australia had a very high rate of land clearing, which resulted in the destruction of bushland. [5] Since 2006 the rate of land clearing has declined significantly. This is partially attributed to legislation that placed a ban on broad scale clearing of mature bushland in Queensland in 2006 and an expansion of those bans to regrowing bushland with a high conservation value in 2009. [6] In New South Wales bushfires cause the greatest destruction of bushland, followed by land clearing for crops, grazing, road and buildings. [7]
Bushland preservation has become the focus of some conservation efforts. In Brisbane, the Brisbane City Council has established a Bushland Acquisition Program, which is funded by a small levy paid by rate-payers. [8] The program began in 1990 and aims to protect koala habitat from urban development. [9] It is estimated that the koala population in the area had declined from 6,240 in 1996 to 1,500 in 2012. [10]
Biriwal Bulga National Park is an Australian national park in New South Wales. It is approximately 45 km north west of Taree and 60 km west of Port Macquarie on the Bulga Plateau.
Conservation in Australia is an issue of state and federal policy. Australia is one of the most biologically diverse countries in the world, with a large portion of species endemic to Australia. Preserving this wealth of biodiversity is important for future generations.
The Mooloolah River National Park is a nationally protected area located on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. It covers an area of 830.9 hectares and is bordered by the Mooloolah River to the east, Claymore and Dixon Roads to the west, and the Lower Mooloolah River Environmental Reserve to the south. It is bisected by the Sunshine Motorway with the northern, 161.93 hectare component of the Park being a later addition. The Park was initially vacant crown land prior to national park designation in 1960. Surrounding land uses include livestock grazing, urban development and the campus of the University of the Sunshine Coast. It is the second largest mainland park on the coastal lowlands in South East Queensland after Noosa National Park and represents an example of low-lying coastal floodplain distinctive of the region.
Venman Bushland is a national park in Queensland, Australia, 22 km southeast of Brisbane.
Bush regeneration, a form of natural area restoration, is the term used in Australia for the ecological restoration of remnant vegetation areas, such as through the minimisation of negative disturbances, both exogenous such as exotic weeds and endogenous such as erosion. It may also attempt to recreate conditions of pre-European arrival, for example by simulating endogenous disturbances such as fire. Bush regeneration attempts to protect and enhance the floral biodiversity in an area by providing conditions conducive to the recruitment and survival of native plants.
South East Queensland (SEQ) is a bio-geographical, metropolitan, political and administrative region of the state of Queensland in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million people out of the state's population of 5.1 million. The area covered by South East Queensland varies, depending on the definition of the region, though it tends to include Queensland's three largest cities: the capital city Brisbane; the Gold Coast; and the Sunshine Coast. Its most common use is for political purposes, and covers 35,248 square kilometres (13,609 sq mi) and incorporates 11 local government areas, extending 240 kilometres (150 mi) from Noosa in the north to the Gold Coast and New South Wales border in the south, and 140 kilometres (87 mi) west to Toowoomba.
Environmental issue in Australia describes a number of environmental issues which affect the environment of Australia. There are a range of such issues, some of the relating to conservation in Australia while others, for example the deteriorating state of Murray-Darling Basin, have a direct and serious effect on human land use and the economy.
Burbank is a greenbelt suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Burbank had a population of 1,050 people.
Karawatha Forest or Karawatha nature reserve is approximately 900 hectares of bushland in the Brisbane suburbs of Karawatha and Stretton, Australia. It is one of the largest areas of remnant bushland within Brisbane. The predominant vegetation types in the forest are dry eucalypt forest and woodland with native heath understories. The Karawatha Forest Protection Society was formed to ensure that the bushland was protected from development and is owned and managed by the Brisbane City Council (BCC). Funds raised from the BCC's Bushland Preservation Levy have enabled the acquisition of land for preservation of Karawatha Forest.
Land clearing in Australia describes the removal of native vegetation and deforestation in Australia. Land clearing involves the removal of native vegetation and habitats, including the bulldozing of native bushlands, forests, savannah, woodlands and native grasslands and the draining of natural wetlands for replacement with agriculture, urban and other land uses.
Moggill Creek is a creek in Brisbane, the largest city in Queensland, Australia. The creek rises on the Taylor Range and runs in a south-easterly direction from the southern edge of Brisbane Forest Park in Kholo and Pullenvale, flowing through Upper Brookfield, Brookfield and joining the Brisbane River at Kenmore. Before entering the Brisbane River the creek is crossed by Moggill Road and winds through Rafting Ground Reserve.
Goonderoo Reserve is a 593–hectare nature reserve in the Brigalow belt of Queensland, Australia. It is located 40 km south of Emerald, 300 km west of Rockhampton and 835 km north-west of Brisbane. It is owned and managed by Bush Heritage Australia (BHA), by which it was purchased in 1998.
The Brigalow Belt is a wide band of acacia-wooded grassland that runs between tropical rainforest of the coast and the semi-arid interior of Queensland, Australia. The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) divides the Brigalow Belt into two IBRA regions, or bioregions, Brigalow Belt North (BBN) and Brigalow Belt South (BBS). The North and South Brigalow Belt are two of the 85 bioregions across Australia and the 15 bioregions in Queensland. Together they form most of the Brigalow tropical savanna ecoregion.
Australia's National Reserve System (NRS) is a network of more than 10,000 Commonwealth plus state and territory protected areas which, in combination, on a national scale, protect more than 137 million hectares, greater than 17% of the continent, of unique biodiversity and most significant ecological landscapes for future generations. The aim of the NRS is protect the diversity of all native landscapes, flora and fauna across Australia through strategic habitat protection. It consists of public, indigenous and privately protected areas of land and inland freshwaters.
The summer of 2012–13, had above average fire potential for most of the southern half of the continent from the east coast to the west. This is despite having extensive fire in parts of the country over the last 12 months. The reason for this prediction is the abundant grass growth spurred by two La Niña events over the last two years.
Lower Beechmont is a locality in the City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. It is situated in the Gold Coast hinterland. In the 2016 census, Lower Beechmont had a population of 1,046 people.
Eprapah, the Charles S. Snow Scout Environment Training Centre, at Victoria Point, near Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, is a noted ecological area within Redland City. Owned and managed by the Scout Association of Australia, Queensland Branch, the 39 hectares is home to a variety of habitats along Eprapah Creek to its north.
Galilee is a former rural locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Galilee had a population of 20 people.
Bush Forever is a Western Australian government initiative and plan, aimed at preserving a "comprehensive, adequate and representative" 10 percent of each vegetation complex on the Swan Coastal Plain within the Perth metropolitan region. Introduced in 2000, the plan was to achieve this through a network of reserves by 2010.
Koala conservation organisations, programs and government legislation are concerned with the declining population of koalas, a well known Australian marsupial found in gum trees. The Australian government declared the species as endangered by extinction in 2022.