Habitat clearingHabitat clearing

Habitat clearing

Land clearing for agriculture, infrastructure, road, and housing development continues to place Pookila habitat at risk of further loss and fragmentation. As very little targeted and systematic monitoring of Pookila populations has occurred across the range in NSW (DCCEEW 2024b), the species is at particular risk of losing habitat where presence has not yet been confirmed.

In 2019, 87% of the Australian population lived within 50 km of the coast (cited in Clark et al. 2021). Coastal development is a continuing, increasing pressure with very high impacts on coastal environments (Clark et al. 2021) that is sprawling beyond established urban areas to regional coastal areas (Infrastructure Australia 2020).

When habitat is cleared, disturbed, or modified, the risk and magnitude of impact to adjacent extant habitat patches increases, along with the interactive capability of threats (Fischer & Lindenmayer 2007; DNRE Tas 2022). For example, land clearing for agriculture can increase the carrying capacity of native and introduced herbivores within the landscape, leading to increased grazing and soil impact pressures on adjacent habitat. This is exacerbated when fire results in a further increase in grazing pressure and movement as herbivores actively seek to consume newly emerging vegetative shoots (DAWE 2022). With an increasing trend of habitat loss due to land clearing, the likelihood that fragmentation has occurred and will continue to occur is very high.