Looking back at a number of challenges facing Emu Swamp as a result of human settlement. Overview of how the ecosystem responds to fire and a question as to whether the community can learn from these challenges and dynamics in our response to climate change through Biomimicry.

1. Lessons from the Battle
of Emu Swamp
Sustainability, Change and Resilience
Cr Brian Stockwell
S

2. Past, Present
& Emerging
Socio-ecology
The ecosystems of the wallum
and Emu Swamp were not just
managed by aboriginal burning
regimes they symbiotically
evolved with them

3. The ideological battle
Are we still perfectionists?
– Bill Metcalf Research
Wooloogabba Exemplar
– 4000 ha at Lake Weyba after 1893 flood
– Walked from Brisbane to form Utopian social experiment
– “George Chale Watson, founder of the Wooloogabba Exemplars
was messianic in his promulgation of Christian Communism,
where everyone (men and women) would be equal, all would
care for each other and money would be banned.”
– The Experiment failed in Lake Weyba
…. but not completely near Pomona.

4. My
Connection
to
Country
1855 First Aussie family member born Stony Creek
1870s Loggers Beaudesert to Gold Coast
Pre WW1 Banana farmers North Arm
1918-1981 Mainly Brisbane (but in Binna Burra in 50s)

5. Personal Background
– 1981 Moved to Noosa
– 1987-2001 BA (Geography & Economics), Grad DIP URP, M Nat Res
– 1988-1991 Noosa Shire Councillor
– 1991-1998 Planner Cooloola Shire
– 1998-2004 DNRM - ICM Coordinator to Principal Planner
– 2004-2010 Principal Catchment Ecologist
– 2010-2014 Sunshine Coast Regional Director– DEEDI and SDIP
– 2013 PhD –Interdisciplinary Sustainable Peri-Urban Catchments
– 2014-2016 Lecturer Geography and Regional Sustainability Planning
– 2016-current Councillor

7. Can we take a laidback attitude ?

8. Environment
Strategy

9. Slides like this are Courtesy of a
presentation by Vivien Griffin

10. Battle of the Western Front
8/8/88
Cooroy
Rag 1988

11. Battling the Motorway

15. Battles for
Space

16. Battling nature?
Slides that look like this are from my 1990’s university Report

17. Rare and Endangered Flora

18. Battling the truth

19. Battling community sentiment

21. Peregian Heathland
History

22. Published 1977
Published
1977

23. Source: Lincore & Hobbs 1977
– the science was accepted over 40 years ago

25. What can fire teach us
about Sustainability?
– The difference between the Binna
Burra and Peregian Beach Fires
– How to win the ‘Survivor’ Challenge
– Will we lose biodiversity?
– Can the human community learn from
the heathland community and
become more resilient?

26. Binna Burra
Before and After in a different Biome
– World Heritage Listed Gondwanic rainforest
– Rainforest depend on total exclusion of fire
– Disturbance creating gaps in rainforest
– Succession (how ecosystems respond to
disturbance) - ‘Facilitative’
– Biodiversity increases over time to return to
Rainforest as the “Climax” community

27. Wallum - Ecological
‘Succession’ Theories
– Initial Floristic Composition Model
(Egler 1954)
– Post fire succession generally features
high initial species richness with
changes
– Longevity rather than competition is
responsible for elimination of species

28. Vital Attributes Theory
– Vital Attributes are considered to play a significant role
in the vegetation replacement sequence these include:
– The method of arrival or persistence after disturbance
(e.g. ability to survive fire)
– The ability to establish and grow to maturity
(recruitment)
– The time taken for species to reach critical life stages
(reproductive timing)

30. Effects of Fire Frequency

31. Intermediate
Disturbance
Hypothesis
– Predicts peak diversity will occur at
intermediate disturbance (e.g. fire)
levels
– Long intervals without disturbance
will result in sufficient time for the
exclusion of species by strong
competitors
– Very short intervals could result in the
elimination of all species but those
most resilient to disturbance
(continual waves in the ‘Survivor’
Analogy)

32. 1 month on
– What did the succession
look like one month after
the fire?
– Just five days after first
rain

34. How does this species
survive?
– Seeds stored for long periods in
woody pods
– Fire triggered opening of seed pods
– What would be the critical life stage
effecting succession?

35. Small Changes in Wallum landscapes result in significant
changes in vegetation – this photo shows sedges
resprouting in a small depression due to groundwater

36. Fire truck wheel tracks reveal just how close groundwater is
to the surface in Emu Swamp – in normal conditions this
result in very low fire danger – but the Peregian occurred on
the first time in history that SEQ had experienced
Catastrophic Fire Conditions according to media reports.

37. Grass trees resprout from trunk and
quickly put up flower racemes to
maximise chances of species survival

38. Banksia robur responds both by
liberating seeds and resprouting
from base (lignotuber)

39. Introduced grasses and bracken firm ‘founder’ species
after fires. A higher frequency of fires may result
increased change of species.

40. Relict or Founder
Control ?
Weed species around the edge of the National Park
may invade in areas disturbed by fire.

41. Future: Rising Seas and diminishing potable water
supplies may lead to increase in coastal bores for garden
water and westward movement of saline wedge into the
groundwater that links Emu Swamp to the sea.

42. Socio Ecological Systems?
Can we use Biomimicry to look at the vital
attributes that will increase the resilience
of our community?

43. Biomimicry
‘the analysis of processes in natural systems to
derive design principles for human systems’
Potential key dynamics relevant to
socio-economic as well as ecological systems
– In changing communities, disturbance
regimes determine whether they are
‘founder’ or ‘relict’ controlled
– Refugia, dispersal and colonisation
characteristics of a community determine
the adaptability
– Initial post disturbance conditions will
determine the transformation pathway
– Diverse vital attributes determine the
resilience