Fire Planning for Wildlife Management - a Decision-Support System for Nadgee-Nature-Reserve, Australia

Abstract

This paper describes a decision support system for generating fire management plans which address predefined wildlife management objectives for a nature conservation reserve. Given limited knowledge of how low intensity fire would affect wildlife species, the expert reasoning of researchers was used to postulate fire response curves showing how high intensity fire affects vegetation structure and hence wildlife population density through time. These fire response curves and knowledge of the habitat preferences of wildlife species provided the best available information upon which to frame decision rules advocating prescribed burning at low intensity to manipulate wildlife habitat. Decision rules were also framed for protecting recreation sites, limiting fire spread, and reducing the risk of wildfire ignition. Once the decision rules were quantified, the LUPIS land use planning and information system was used to derive and map burning options reflecting different wildlife management strategies.