Where do you get your plants and wildlife information?
08-Mar-2012
Learning what plants and wildlife you have at your patch can be a rewarding experience. There are also some legal responsibilities that go with the management of both threatened and threatening species. These responsibilities will be covered in more detail in a future newsletter article. Beginning to find out what’s in your patch is easy with some of the internet tools now available.
The state government provides online tools that will give you wildlife listings and vegetation maps for your patch. Wildlife listings are available from Wetland Maps. This allows you to search for your patch by address; draw around it and then generate a PDF report of the known plants and wildlife from the area you have drawn. Property scale vegetation maps (PDF) can be generated through the DERM website. Click on ‘generate map with lot plan’ and then select the option you would like – either remnant or regrowth map – I always order both one after the other. These are delivered electronically as PDF and will tell you which Regional Ecosystems are mapped for your patch. To make more sense out of this you can look up the Regional Ecosystem Description Database, type in an RE number from your map and then click on the link to access information and management tips for your patch.
These resources will provide just a beginning to the information available to help you make informed management decisions for your patch. The information will include an indication of which plants, wildlife and ecosystems are considered threatened and which plants and wildlife are introduced. With a little more googling you can find management guidance for:
• threatened species and ecosystems in the form of recovery plans
• introduced plants and wildlife in the form of pest management strategies and risk assessments
These guidelines will form the basis of how to comply with legal responsibilities and can also provide an indication of who else is concerned about your threatened species or the pest plants and animals that are impacting on your patch. There will be more about this in future newsletter articles however to get started now use the links below.
Wildlife listing for your patch
http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/wetlandinfo/site/MappingFandD/WetlandMapsAndData/WetlandMaps.html
Regional Ecosystem descriptions
http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/wildlife-ecosystems/biodiversity/regional_ecosystems/
