We have been contracted by Ipswich City Council to undertake an assessment of habitat use by koalas across Council's Parks and Reserves, including the Mount Grandchester, Flinders - Goolman and White Rock - Spring Mountain Conservation Estates. The project involves a review of historical koala records to examine changes in koala distribution over time, as well as the application of SAT-based methodologies to quantify aspects of koala occupancy and metapopulation configuration in key areas.
Successful long-term conservation of the koala population inhabiting the Burleigh Ridge to the east of the Pacific Motorway in the City of Gold Coast LGA is an important aspect of Council's long-term koala management objectives.
Funded by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (Australia), we have recently commenced an assessment of the impact on koalas of the recent fire events. We are able to do this because earlier project work has provided us with a large array of contemporaneous (i.e. current koala generation) pre-fire survey data.
Much has been happened to koalas over the last few years, culminating in what could only be described as a catastrophic 2019/20 fire season. On behalf of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) we recently completed a considered assessment of just how much habitat in NSW no longer contains koalas, how many have potentially been lost, from where and what the longer-term conservation implications are.
In 2012, the NSW Minister for Planning & Infrastructure initiated a review of the application of Environmental Zones (E Zones) and overlays in Local Environmental Plans on the Far North Coast of NSW. Amongst the implications arising from this review was the deferral of proposed land use zonings in some areas.
We often work with other consultancy companies and/or organisations to assist them with the undertaking of various projects. Current collaborations include:
- a long-term study being undertaken by colleague Dr. Mark Fitzgerald. This study uses a BACI (Before, After, Control, Impact) designed monitoring program assessing the potential impacts upon birds of various festival events on the North Byron Parklands at Yelgun.
We have recently completed several local and landscape-scale, connectivity studies intended to better understand and predict the movement needs of koalas across fragmented landscapes.
Morihei Ueshiba (1883 - 1969)
