Dailan Pugh*, 2003.

In 1992 the National Forest Policy set in train a process that was meant to result in the establishment of comprehensive, adequate and representative reserve systems for forests throughout Australia. In 1997 the national reserve criteria were adopted. Amongst other things, these established the need to incorporate viable populations of fauna species into reserves.

From 1995 until 1998, the NSW Government undertook Comprehensive Regional Assessments of the Upper North East (UNE) and Lower North East (LNE) regions of north-east NSW. In this process, panels of experts identified the numbers of females of each priority animal species required to be included in reserves to give them an equitable chance of survival and create an adequate reserve system.

In November 1998 Premier Carr announced the creation of 380,000 hectares of new reserves in north-east NSW as part of his Regional Forest Agreement. This was claimed to be a comprehensive, adequate and representative reserve system. Though it included less than 40% of the area of public lands that the NSW Government agencies identified as required to reasonably fulfil the national reserve criteria.

Fauna fared particularly badly in the Government’s slashing. In the end a total of 72% of the populations of the 152 fauna species failed to achieve reservation targets, with 57% of populations having less than half the area required for their survival reserved, and 23% of populations with less than one tenth of the area required.

It was apparent that the plight of our endangered species was considered irrelevant in the political process.

Since 1998 a number of unloggable areas have been added to the reserve system in north-east NSW. These will have only marginally improved the reserve outcome for fauna.

The current situation is that most of our threatened animal species do not have enough habitat protected to safeguard their future, and thus have been condemned to ongoing population declines and ultimately extinction.

If we are to give our threatened species a chance of surviving into our uncertain future then as a minimum we must act to include viable populations of all species into reserves, link reserves together with meaningful wildlife corridors and manage the rest to maintain native species throughout the forest estate.

This paper outlines the process that was applied to establish reserve targets for fauna in the Comprehensive Regional Assessments of both the Upper North East (UNE) and Lower North East (LNE) regions and reviews the 1998 reservation outcomes for fauna in relation to those targets.

(* Dailan Pugh represented conservation groups on a variety of committees overseeing the NSW Comprehensive Regional Assessment process and instigated the methodology for setting targets for fauna)

North-east NSW, in conjunction with south-east Queensland, is known to be nationally and internationally significant for its diversity of plants and animals. This region is the evolutionary hub of the wet sub-tropics with a high number of endemic species. In this region Australia's predominantly northern flora and fauna reach their southern limits of distribution and the predominantly southern species reach their northern limits (this species overlap is, in part, referred to as the Macleay-McPherson Overlap). This overlap includes Tumbunan, Bassian, Torresian and Eyrean zoogeographical influences and as noted by the NPWS (1994a) "Nowhere else in Australia do so many zoogeographical influences combine".

Within Australia, it is the tropical forests of north-east Queensland and the forests of north-east NSW/south-east Queensland that are the principle centres of biodiversity for frogs, birds, mammals, insects and (along with south-west Western Australia) plants. The north-east NSW/south-east Queensland region supports 35 endemic vertebrate fauna species and is the distributional stronghold for 37 other species (NPWS 1994a).

North-east NSW’s internationally significant species diversity, numerous endemic species, high numbers of endangered species, significant populations of species which have declined elsewhere in Australia and importance for migratory fauna, identify it as one of Australia's major refuge areas with the best ability to maintain Australia's declining biodiversity into the uncertain future.

The National Forest Policy Statement (CoA 1992) was signed by the Prime Minister and the Premiers of all the mainland states in 1992. In signing the NFPS the States committed themselves to establishing a comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) reservation system to protect old-growth forest and wilderness values by the end of 1995 for public lands, with the inclusion of necessary forest from private land by 1998. The NFPS also precipitated the development of nationally agreed criteria for the establishment of conservation reserves. The principle biodiversity conservation outcome of the NFPS was the establishment of the principles of ‘comprehensive’, ‘adequate’ and ‘representative’ as the basis for developing reserve criteria from which to review and establish reserve systems to protect the conservation values of forests. Finally in 1997, agreement was achieved on national reserve criteria called the Nationally Agreed Criteria for the Establishment of a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative Reserve System for Forests in Australia (JANIS 1997).

The nationally agreed forest reserve criteria (JANIS 1997) gives four principle objectives for biodiversity conservation, including:

• to maintain viable populations of native forest species throughout their natural ranges; and
• to maintain the genetic diversity of native forest species.

For species JANIS (1997) establishes that:

(5) The reserve system should seek to maximise the area of high quality habitat for all known elements of biodiversity wherever practicable, but with particular reference to:

(6) Reserves should be large enough to sustain the viability, quality and integrity of populations.

Further to this JANIS (1997) notes that, providing that all criteria are considered, "biodiversity should take precedence" in determining a reserve system.

The challenge in the Comprehensive Regional Assessment was how to apply the available information to meet the JANIS requirement that viable populations of native species are included in the reserve system.

For north-east NSW, the results of years of stratified and systematic fauna surveys, along with incidental observations, were utilised with environmental data layers to model and map the distribution of high quality, medium quality and marginal habitat for 152 of the priority fauna species.

Expert fauna panels (comprised of one National Parks and Wildlife Service [NPWS], one State Forests and at least two independent experts) were convened for each major fauna group. For populations of each fauna species the expert fauna panels identified Species Equity Targets based upon a formula derived by Hugh Possingham for the identification of viable populations of species. It is based upon varying a nominal target of 1,000 breeding individuals to account for trophic level (as an indicator of population variability) and reproductive life span of females (to accommodate species that will suffer serious declines following a bad breeding season). This is converted into a hectare target using an estimate of female density for each of the habitat qualities modelled.

The expert panels made adjustments to targets for some species, such as species with a relictual distribution for which the targets were changed to 100% of one or more modelled habitat quality classes. Where this occurred the experts stressed the need to ensure the target was met and for additional management beyond the creation of a reserve system. Targets were also established for habitat around roost and camp sites for several species of bats.

The areas derived from this method are intended to provide enough habitat to give each priority species an equitable chance of survival. Distinct populations of each species that are separated by barriers sufficient to prevent dispersal between populations were identified as Species Equity Target Areas (SETAs) and the Species Equity Targets applied to each SETA. Reservation Priority Ranks, reflecting the priority of a species to be included in a formal reserve system relative to the other species assessed, were assigned to each species assessed.

Population targets (expressed in hectares) were set for 152 fauna species. When applied to separate populations this resulted in 404 fauna targets in the UNE and 384 fauna targets in the LNE. These targets were applied to the modelled habitat qualities for each species to help identify priority areas for reservation and enable ongoing assessment of how the targets were being met during the identification of reserves.

The principle being that sufficient habitat needed to be in conservation reserves for each priority fauna species to meet the target, as a minimum, in order to create a truly adequate reserve system. The experts established these targets on the basis that the balance of the native forests outside reserves would still be managed for maintenance of native species throughout their ranges.

The NSW State agencies initially applied the data and reserve targets to identify over one million hectares of public lands in north-east NSW as required for addition to the reserve system to achieve a reasonable level of attainment of the national reserve criteria. This assessment was constrained to ensure less than 70% of the State Forests estate was identified for reservation. Without this constraint, conservationists identified 1.2 million hectares as required to reasonably establish a CAR reserve system for public lands.

The NSW Government resolved to ignore the national reserve criteria, the plight of endangered species, the science and conservation groups when deciding their Regional Forest Agreement. On the 12 November 1998 Premier Carr announced the creation of 358,200 hectares of new NPWS formal reserves, 20,100 hectares of new Crown reserves and 3,800 hectares of new State Forest Flora Reserves in north-east NSW.

This political outcome was subsequently claimed to constitute a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative reserve system, though this was clearly not the case.

For populations of rare and threatened animal species in both the UNE and LNE regions of north-east NSW, 28% of the 788 reserve targets were achieved, with a mean target achievement of 49%. There were 57% of these animal populations under half of their reserve targets, and 23% under one tenth of their targets.

Of the 40 fauna species ranked as being the highest priority for reservation (V1), none attained targets for all their populations, only one attained targets for more than half of its populations, and only 9 attained targets for at least one population (Table 1).

Meanwhile , 3 species achieved less than 10% of targets for all of their populations and a further 16 species achieved less than half their targets for all of their populations. In total 29% of the populations of most vulnerable animals in the region failed to meet even one tenth of their minimum reserve targets.

Some of the species which fared particularly badly are; Black-striped Wallaby, Long-nosed Potoroo, Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby, Squirrel Glider, Yellow-bellied Glider, Hastings River Mouse, Eastern Tube-nosed Bat, Black Flying Fox, Barking Owl, Bush Stone-curlew, Rufous Scrub-bird, Double-eyed Fig-Parrot, Pale-headed Snake, Broad-headed Snake, White-crowned Snake, Eulamprus tryoni, Booroolong Frog, Green-thighed Frog, and Fleay’s Barred Frog.

Each species’ reservation adequacy needs to be considered at the population level. Population numbers are derived from the expert panels’ estimates of the density of breeding females (or equivalent population units) in modelled high quality habitat and are thus only indicative.

The nationally endangered Hastings River Mouse is one of the most poorly reserved of those species most in need of reservation. Due to the high fluctuations in populations of such short lived rodents, and their vulnerability to localised extinctions, a target of 4,243 breeding individuals was established for each population. It achieved an average of 4% of its reserve target for the UNE and 7% of its target for the whole of north-east NSW (Table 2). Based upon modelled habitat all of the reserved populations, with one exception, remained below 10% of their targets.

Despite the apparent and observed extreme vulnerability of the Hasting’s River Mouse, Carr’s reserve system protects less than half of the modelled habitat available for protection on public lands in north-east NSW. The fact that a number of known core populations were removed from proposed protection at the last minute is testimony to the total lack of concern for species in the political process.

The four threatened forest owls belong to the class of higher order predators with large home ranges that are very vulnerable to extinction. At one end of the spectrum are Barking Owls which require home ranges of about 200 hectares and at the other are Powerful Owls which require home ranges of 800 hectares or more. The owls were set relatively small population targets (Table 3) due to their longevity and inherent population stability. Only one owl species achieved its target for one of its populations, all other populations being significantly below target.

The Powerful and Sooty Owls are widespread in the forests of the escarpments and ranges and thus achieved targets relatively better due to the bias of reservation towards these areas.

While the Sooty Owl achieved targets for one of its LNE populations, it attained only 1% of its target south of the Hunter River and 59% of its target in the UNE (Table 3). In the UNE the Powerful Owl achieved 38% of its population target of 378 breeding pairs, and in the LNE 69% of its population target. With the exception of the Sooty Owl population south of the Hunter River, it is possible to fully achieve population targets for both of these species on public land.

The Barking and Masked Owls inhabit the more open forests which have been subject to extensive clearing in the coastal lowlands and on the tablelands. These coastal forests achieved targets most poorly under Carr’s reserve plan due to their perceived commercial importance. Under Carr’s reserve system less than half the identified habitat on public lands was reserved for both these species, and at best their populations achieved 21% of targets, thereby jeopardising their long-term survival.

The Tiger Quoll is the largest marsupial carnivore left on mainland Australia. It is in decline nationally, with the forests of north-east NSW representing its national stronghold. Its best remaining populations are associated with the more extensive areas of productive oldgrowth and wilderness along the Great Escarpment. The expert panel identified the need to reserve all high quality habitat for four populations amounting to 354 to 1500 breeding females (Table 4). Carr’s reserve system encompassed half the modelled habitat available for reservation on public lands and achieved only 10% of targets for two of the four populations. There can be no doubt that this species will continue to decline towards extinction on the mainland under Carr’s plan.

Using the Possingham formula, population targets of 2,000 breeding females for each of the 8 identified populations of Brush-tailed Phascogale were identified as required to maintain their viability. The expert panel varied the population targets to reflect the available habitat, with the provision that the target should be fully met. Carr’s new reserves, along with existing reserves, only encompassed 43% of the modelled habitat available for reservation on public lands (Table 4). This equates as sufficient habitat to provide for populations in the order of 2 to 142 breeding females.

The state vulnerable Yellow-bellied Glider and Squirrel Glider are widespread species throughout the drier north-east forests. For the Yellow-bellied Glider the expert panel identified 8 distinct populations, each with a target of 1,155 breeding family groups (Table 4). At best only 28% of the target for any population was achieved. Only 37% of the habitat available for reservation on public lands was protected under Carr’s reserve plan. Given the fragmented nature of much of this species’ habitat, it is certain that the localised extinctions currently being observed in north-east NSW will continue. For the Squirrel Glider targets for 8 populations of 2,530 breeding family groups were identified by the expert panel (Table 4). Three populations remained at under 10% of their targets and at best 32% of the required number of breeding females was achieved. Only 35% of the habitat available for reservation on public lands was protected under Carr’s reserve plan.