Plan to Protect Environmental Assets from Lantana - Weeds Australia

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Plan to Protect Environmental Assets from Lantana Therefore, buffer zones will need to be created around managed sites over time. In addition, weed management, especially in native communities, should always be a long-term and gradual process (Lawrie 2002). As native animals will play a role in dispersing both native plants and weeds, it will be important to encourage native plant recovery while controlling weeds that will continue to invade over the long-term and preventing recruitment to maturity (Turner and Downey 2008). 5.2.3 Control techniques This Plan is supported by other programs that are managed under the Lantana WoNS Strategy. This includes integrated lantana management research, which was undertaken to develop a best practice control manual and decision support tools to assist in lantana control. The Lantana Best Practice Manual and Decision Support Tool (Stock et al. 2009) was developed following a series of lantana management trials. The aims of the project were to: develop a management decision tree—a simple guide to comparing control options in terms of cost versus effectiveness improve the knowledge of adaptive management options faced by landholders and site managers to allow them to make informed decisions about control options implement eleven integrated trials for various climatic zones and land-use sites develop trial sites into demonstration sites suitable for public access develop a lantana best practice control manual. A guide to best management practices, Using Herbicides on Lantana (Clark et al. 2006) can be downloaded at www.dpi.qld.gov.au/documents/Biosecurity_EnvironmentalPests/IPA-Lantana-Herb-Bro.pdf This guide, in conjunction with the Lantana Best Practice Manual and Decision Support Tool (Stock et al. 2009) provides guidance on the use of herbicides for the control of lantana. In addition, the Weeds Cooperative Research Centre has produced guidelines for lantana management (Weeds CRC 2003) that can be downloaded from www.weedscrc.org.au/documents/wmg_lantana.pdf Given the above, the information on control is only briefly discussed below and is focused on control for the protection of environmental assets detailed in this Plan. Site mangers and landholders will need to consider management techniques to limit off-target damage to environmental assets. Each management technique must be tailored to the environmental asset at each site, and, as such, landscape scale control measures, such as fire, may not be appropriate for the protection of assets. This is especially the case for Stage 1 of control (see Section 5.1). Stage 1 is the removal of lantana and other weed species from the immediate vicinity of the threatened species. For example, although fire can be used to control lantana, especially if integrated with other methods, it must be remembered that some ecosystems and species are not fire-tolerant and most are not tolerant to frequent fire regimes. In most cases, fire events cannot be repeated with high frequency and/or intensity without adversely affecting native species diversity (J. Hodgon pers. comm.). Fire has been identified as a significant disturbance that allows the successful invasion of lantana (Gentle and Duggin 1997b). Lantana recovers quickly after fire by shooting from basal dormant buds (Swarbrick et al. 1998); therefore, follow- up control with other methods will be necessary after fire. Under varying conditions lantana may either increase or decrease the fuel load along a rainforest margin (Swarbrick et al. 1998). Fire is not appropriate in such areas because lantana provides a fuel load that changes the intensity of fire (Day et al. 2003). As a means to reduce the invasion hazard of lantana, Duggin and Gentle (1998) suggested that fire should be completely removed from the ecotones between dry rainforest and open forest in northern NSW, except for low-intensity fires to manage fuel loads. 35
Plan to Protect Environmental Assets from Lantana 5.3 Areas presently free of lantana The control of lantana for biodiversity conservation can also be directed to new lantana infestations in order to address potential or future impacts. However, the current impacts to threatened biodiversity are so great and immediate that they require our urgent attention in the first instance. For widespread weeds, such as lantana, treatment needs to focus on strategically reducing the impacts of these weeds where they are significantly affecting key assets, as this outweighs any gains from preventing its further spread (Weeds CRC and Standards Australia 2006). However, any potential or future impacts of lantana on un-infested areas within the core distribution of lantana in QLD and NSW must also be considered and addressed as a high priority. Maintaining areas that are presently free of lantana will be beneficial to biodiversity, as native species, populations and ecological communities in these areas will remain protected from lantana invasions. The removal of outlying infestations will prevent further spread of this invasive plant into new areas, and ensure further economic and environmental impacts are avoided. Infestations requiring control have been identified in northern QLD, western QLD, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia (Rogers and Johnson 2008), where removal or containment is regarded as an important outcome of the national Lantana Strategic Plan (ARMCANZ et al. 2001) . Northern QLD has also been identified as a containment zone. The containment line extends north from Pormpuraaw, Laura and Cooktown. The national Lantana Strategy (ARMCANZ et al. 2001) is also supported in southern NSW by the Southern Tablelands and South Coast Lantana Weed Management Plan (ST & SCNPC 2005). This Plan established the Southern Containment Zone, which commences south of Shoalhaven City Council’s boundary. 5.4 Control at locations not addressed or identified in this Plan The sites outlined in this Plan represent just a small proportion of the area invaded by lantana. Control of lantana currently occurs at many locations for various reasons, including: for biodiversity conservation to reduce impacts on primary production to prevent further spread of lantana for neighbour relations (including community relations) for cultural heritage asset management,infrastructure management and control in prominent public recreation areas (such as control at picnic areas, walking tracks, camping grounds and roads), as well as for amenity purposes to maintain or extend containment zones and to eradicate isolated infestations to meet noxious weed obligations to foster research aimed at improved management. While this Plan specifically targets the control of lantana for biodiversity conservation, it is important that control for these other reasons continues at locations not addressed in this Plan, as it delivers broader outcomes as well as reducing the lantana problem. However, if management is to occur for biodiversity conservation, as a starting point control at sites within control categories three to nine (see Figure 3.2) should only be resourced when control category one andtwo sites have already been resourced. 5.5 Social and economic impacts of the Plan The implementation of this Plan will have positive social benefits. As lantana is a major environmental weed infesting more than five per cent of the Australian continent (Sinden et al. 2004) and threatening many plant communities, any reduction in the distribution of lantana should result in enhanced protection and aesthetic appeal of natural areas and parks; reduced impacts on biodiversity; reduced lantana spread; and fewer impacts on primary production. Raising public awareness of lantana will help to maintain and augment the historically strong community support for lantana control across NSW and QLD. Improved understanding of 36
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Plan to Protect Environmental Assets from Lantana - Weeds Australia

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