Price: Free; contact us for hardcopies, or download the report as a PDF from this page.

This publication reports on a review of fire management in Australia’s rangelands commissioned by the Australian Department of Environment and Heritage under the Natural Heritage Trust.

The report contains a checklist for fire management plans in the rangelands, with links to a range of information:

• definitions of terms and concepts
• descriptions of the major vegetation types within the rangelands followed by a list of key references
• communication principles and planning priorities
• a list of sources of information, i.e. fire species attributes, and fire and land use mapping resources
• Links to other resources.

You can download the report as a PDF free of charge from this page (right click on the link at right, then save the the report to your hard drive for easier viewing), or contact the CRC for a hardcopy version, contact details at right.

Why fire management is important for natural resource management in the rangelands

The rangelands of Australia have a high biodiversity value: high species diversity, significant numbers of endemic species, areas of ecological and geo-morphological integrity, unique ecosystems and habitat for rare and endangered species. The rangelands are relatively intact with little clearing compared with the areas of intensive agriculture in eastern, southern and south-western Australia. Australia’s rangelands are an important refuge for Australia’s biodiversity.

Despite the relatively low level of disturbance in the rangelands, the abundance and richness of rangeland biodiversity is declining and there is evidence that inappropriate fire regimes are partly responsible. Fire is an integral part of the ecosystems of Australia’s rangelands. Fire management is one of few management tools available to land managers in this zone. Sustainable pasture production is dependent on the maintenance of the resource base (soils and pastures) through sound fire management practices in the short and long term. These fire management practices will have significant impacts on biodiversity conservation. Therefore “understanding how fire affects biodiversity has national significance”. (Dyer et al. 2001).

Impacts of various fire management practices on the environment—at regional and local/property scales

Fire management practices are a major factor affecting the ecological function and biodiversity of all ecosystems in the rangelands. For any region or sub-region, desirable fire management practices will vary with the desired management outcomes, and the climate, terrain and flora and fauna assemblages present, as well as the scale of the ecosystem mosaic. Some elements of rangeland ecosystems are resilient to variations in fire regime, others are sensitive to fire intensity and/or sensitive to fire interval. Therefore, no single fire regime applied at landscape scales can meet the needs of any one major land management objective (e.g . biodiversity conservation), let alone multiple land management objectives.