Executive summaryExecutive summary

Executive summary

This ‘National Recovery Plan for the Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis)’ presents conservation and management actions necessary to halt decline and support recovery of the Wollemi Pine in its only known natural occurrence.

The Wollemi Pine is listed as Critically Endangered under both the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (BC Act) and the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). This plan has been prepared in partnership with the Wollemi Pine Recovery Team, which consists of land managers, researchers and specialists in the biology, ecology, and management of the species. This plan builds on the previous 2006 recovery plan for the species and is designed to align with the Saving Our Species strategy for the Wollemi Pine under the NSW Government’s Saving Our Species (SoS) program.

Population structure and threats

The Wollemi Pine is a long-lived, slow-growing rainforest tree belonging to the 200-million-year-old Araucariaceae family. As of June 2024, it is known from a single wild population in Wollemi National Park that consists of four discrete stands, totalling 45 adult plants and 46 juveniles.

The Wollemi Pine is threatened by demographic and environmental stochasticity due to its extremely small population size and geographic distribution; fire regimes that cause declines in biodiversity (particularly high severity fire and high frequency fire); dieback from the pathogens Phytophthora cinnamomi and P. multivora; unauthorised (illegal) visitation to the wild population resulting in damage to the species and its habitat through trampling of seedlings and juveniles, soil compaction and erosion, introduction of weeds and/or novel pathogens, and spread of existing pathogens; and anthropogenic climate change, including changes to rainfall, temperature, and disturbance regimes such as fires, floods, heatwaves and storms.

The wild Wollemi Pine population and a further three translocated stands of Wollemi Pine were impacted by the 2019–20 bushfires. These fires were mainly active in the understorey, resulting in severe impacts on, and extensive mortality of, seedlings and juveniles. Several adult trees in the wild population also suffered significant damage. Population recovery is being closely monitored and research into tolerable fire regimes for the Wollemi Pine is ongoing. The influence of anthropogenic climate change on the severity and scale of these bushfires together with known sensitivities of Wollemi Pine to other phenomena worsening under climate change (such as heatwaves and droughts), highlights the need to develop greater understanding of the nature of climate change impacts on the wild Wollemi Pine population. Additionally, following the 2019–20 bushfires, feral pig and deer populations increased significantly in the wild Wollemi Pine population’s catchment area. Disturbance by feral animals and the associated dispersal of weed propagules and soil pathogens are seen as emerging threats.