Latest news with #DBCA
ABC News
15-07-2025
- General
- ABC News
DBCA documents reveal damage to rare forest after hundreds of trees felled by controlled burn
Internal Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) documents have revealed the full extent of damage caused by a prescribed burn that felled hundreds of rare native trees along Western Australia's south coast. Giant red tingles are the largest buttressing species of eucalyptus in the world and only grow in a small parcel of forest 400 kilometres south of Perth, known as the Valley of the Giants. The trees, which can live for 500 years and reach heights of 80 metres, are considered under threat by global authorities. But they are targeted as part of WA's controlled burning program that is designed to reduce the bushfire risk across the state's south. Conservation groups raised the alarm in December last year, after a burn in an area of Walpole-Nornalup National Park known as the Giants Block saw a 400-year-old tingle tree destroyed. "We have seen a lot of the demise of flora and fauna, and we're very concerned about that," conservationist Bart Lebbing said. Immediately after the fire, DBCA stated it was aware of "one large tree" felled by the fire. But internal documents obtained by the ABC showed 114 trees, including 95 red tingles, were destroyed. Documents also show the fire burned 99 per cent of the prescribed area with greater severity than mitigation burns conducted at the same block three decades ago. Crown scorching, where the tops of the trees are visibly damaged and something meant to be minimised during mitigation burns, occurred in more than half of the mature karri and tingle trees in the area. The DBCA report suggested the severity of the fire could be attributed to higher fuel loads, the intervals since its last burn, ignition timing, and lighting strategies. DBCA initially declined to release its Prescribed Burn Plan until compelled to do so under Freedom of Information rules. Despite the damage caused, DBCA said the burn was a success, but several experts contacted by the ABC concluded the burn was a failure. At a community forum in June, the department confirmed 19 blocks in neighbouring forest were earmarked for burning over the next three years, including four with stands of red tingle trees. The Leeuwin group, a consortium of WA's top environmental scientists, has urged the government to amend its burn program to avoid another mass felling. "We are really keen to see a form of fire protection put in place that doesn't involve burning blocks of tingle," Professor Steve Hopper said. "Rather, burns around the periphery of them to afford some protection from incoming fire, but not taking out literally tens if not hundreds of trees. "That's what we've recommended consistently to the government, and as yet, they haven't responded in a way that indicates a change is afoot." WA Environment Minister Matthew Swinbourn declined multiple requests from the ABC for an interview. A statement from his office said DBCA had a legislated responsibility to protect communities and the environment from bushfires and defended the department's management of its burn program. "DBCA follows specific operational guidelines that include scrub rolling, clearing, hosing, and applying fire retardant to the base of tingle trees to protect large hollow trees and prevent canopy fires during prescribed burns," it read. 'The prescribed burning of red tingle forests follows scientific evidence and operational best practice. "DBCA continues to assess and learn from all events." An earlier statement said the burn program was based on 60 years of data, with new research underway. However, the Leeuwin group said the minister's response amounted to a red herring. "The minister's solution has been to park it for 10 years, and he's given the department a bit of money for new research to be done," Professor Hopper said. "We think the scientific evidence is already compelling." A trial burn of the same plot in 1997, conducted by the then Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM), found that 10 trees per 100 hectares was the highest acceptable loss. DBCA's assessment of the Giants Block burn identified 114 trees in a 91-hectare area as having fallen, well in excess of the CALM report. Ecologist and lecturer at the University of Tasmania, Nathan Anderson, has been studying red tingles in the south-west for the past five years. He said some historical data, like the 1997 CALM report, was being ignored. "The previous burn that was in there, there were 30 trees that collapsed, that was a concerning loss of trees, and we're at more than three times that amount for the same area," he said. "We're looking at a concern that was raised in the 1990s, and it's still a concern today, and if we don't address that, then it's only going to get worse." Mr Anderson said continued burning in the tingle forest would only serve to weaken existing trees and increase the risk of future collapse. Mr Anderson said that as the climate in the south-west changed, so too should fire mitigation practices. "In the next five decades, we're looking at the entirety of the red tingle forest becoming drier than the driest portion of red tingle now," he said. "There needs to be an open acknowledgement that this is a fire-sensitive ecosystem, then we can move forward with that with discussions from ecology, from fire practitioners, from fire science within the department."
Sky News AU
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News AU
'How stupid are you': Canadian influencer slammed after catching baby crocodile in Australia for distressing social media stunt
A social media influencer from Canada has stirred up a storm online after uploading a video in which he grabs a baby crocodile from a creek in Australia and mocks its cries as those of a "little b***h". Colton Macaulay, 27, hailing from Nova Scotia, has amassed a massive online following under the usernames @kingcoltyy and @coltyy, boasting around 16 million followers across his platforms. Known for engaging in wildlife stunts and animal-based challenges, Macaulay's latest post has inited a firestorm of controversy. In the now-deleted clip titled 'Catching crocodiles in Australia', Macaulay is seen reaching into a creek at night and lifting a young freshwater crocodile with his bare hands. As the animal writhes, he holds it up for the camera by the neck. 'Hey guys, I'm in Australia right now, and we just yoinked a freshwater croc,' he says. 'I don't think he was happy about it because he started making these sounds like a chainsaw. Or maybe that's the sound they make when they decide to cry like a little b***h.' The crocodile, clearly distressed, is seen with its mouth wide open, letting out a high-pitched shriek as Macaulay grips its neck. The video, while removed from most of his channels, remains accessible on Facebook and has racked up nearly half a million views, and reactions were far from positive. 'How stupid are you?' one commenter asked. Another called him an 'idiot', and someone else simply labelled him a 'moron'. Macaulay's video includes a disclaimer claiming the act was 'performed by a professional'. In Australia, only authorised individuals with proper permits are legally allowed to handle crocodiles. Permits are managed by different state and territory departments, such as Western Australia's Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), Queensland's Department of Environment, Science and Innovation, and the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory. Freshwater crocodiles are protected under Australian law via the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. 'A person may commit an offence if they take or move a member of a listed threatened species from in or on a Commonwealth area without approval,' a spokesperson for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water told The penalties for interfering with crocodiles vary by region. In the Northern Territory, it can result in a fine of up to $92,500 or five years behind bars. In Queensland, the figure is up to $26,615, while Western Australia enforces penalties as high as $200,000. What remains unclear is where the video was filmed or whether Macaulay held any relevant permits. Legal professionals and conservationists have raised concerns over both the legality and ethics of Macaulay's conduct. 'There is no doubt a plethora of nature conservation laws that would apply to this person,' a lawyer from the Animal Defenders Office, an organisation that focuses on animal protection, told Experts also warned that these types of interactions pose serious dangers to both humans and animals. 'It can cause injury or death and impact a crocodile's behaviour around humans,' a spokesperson for Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife said. 'Interference can result in the animal needing to be removed from the wild due to altered behaviour and becoming dangerous to the public. Often these animals are destroyed.' The backlash follows a similar case involving an American influencer who took a baby wombat from its mother last March. That incident sparked international condemnation, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calling it an 'outrage'. In that case influencer Sam Jones claimed in an emotional post that she was 'truly sorry' and had received 'thousands' of threats to her life. She said she fled the scene fearing an attack, insisting she was 'extremely concerned' about the wombat's wellbeing. However Macaulay has continued to post wildlife-related stunts. This week, he uploaded a clip showing him handling a stonefish, known to be the most venomous fish in the world. Despite its ability to kill an adult within an hour, Macaulay casually picked it up and attempted to squeeze venom out of it using a thong. In March, he told his audience that he had caught 40 snakes during a 10-day trip in Australia. In one instance, he was bitten by an Eastern Small-eyed snake, a species with highly toxic venom. He called it his 'closest brush with death'. Other videos on his channels show him swimming in crocodile-infested waters. has reached out to Macaulay for comment.
ABC News
01-07-2025
- General
- ABC News
Government fails to protect dozens of WA threatened ecological communities
More than two thirds of Western Australia's threatened ecological communities (TECs) are ineffectively monitored and protected, with an auditor general's inquiry exposing the state's failure to act under its own conservation laws. The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) has made little progress in monitoring or protecting 72 per cent of TECs, according to the report by Auditor General Caroline Spencer. Recovery plans were either interim or outdated, with none approved by the environment minister. The report also found it would take more than a century, at the current rate, to assess 390 at-risk communities identified as potentially threatened. It said 60 of the communities awaiting assessment were in the Kimberley. Ms Spencer said DCBA lacked the resources and planning to meet its obligations. She found the department did not have a TEC strategy, and it was unclear if current activities aligned with long-term conservation goals. The WA Biodiversity Conservation Act was passed in 2016, coming into effect with regulations in 2019. It allowed the environment minister to list a species or ecological community as threatened. There have been 65 threatened ecological communities listed across the state. Environs Kimberley executive director Martin Pritchard said the government was not prioritising the environment. "It's so disappointing the government is choosing not to fund the proper management of these threatened ecological communities to make sure they survive," he said. "This means we don't know what's happening to these environments. "Are they being severely impacted by cattle? Is climate change impacting them? Is the extraction of ground water a major threat to them?" Mr Pritchard said he was "shocked" part of the $2.4 billion operating surplus for 2024-25 could not be used to fund ecological protection. The Montane Heath and Thicket of the Eastern Stirling Range are listed as critically endangered on the state's south coast. University of Western Australia botanist Stephen Hopper said it was time to protect "wonderful natural heritage assets". "It's simply going to decline and get worse, and that is not just a local problem, it's a national and international challenge," Professor Hopper said. He blamed low state and federal government funding, in part, for limiting the DCBA's ability to effectively do its job. "There are well-meaning people in the department trying to do the best they can," he said. "They're in this invidious position of not even having the resources to be able to monitor whether the conservation status was going up or down with threatened communities." The DCBA did not confirm whether it had made a formal case for increased funding to implement the Biodiversity Conservation Act. In a statement, a department spokesperson said it welcomed the auditor general's review. "Recovery actions for TECs and threatened species are built into broader conservation programs by DBCA and supported by State, Commonwealth, and non-government funding," they said. "Regional conservation planning is being finalised across all nine DBCA regions, ensuring a consistent, prioritised approach to addressing threats to threatened species and ecological communities." The spokesperson said recovery plans were prioritised when significant complexities in conservation planning arose.
ABC News
15-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
WA government steadfast on prescribed burns despite mass tingle tree felling
A prescribed burn that is estimated to have felled hundreds of rare trees found only in a pocket on Western Australia's south coast has been labelled a success by the department responsible, despite acknowledging it failed to protect the under-threat trees. The burn in WA's Valley of the Giants, about 400 kilometres south of Perth, in mid-December drew public attention after it was revealed it killed a tingle tree believed to be about 400 years old. Red tingles can live for more than 500 years, reaching heights of 75 metres, and only grow in a narrow 60-square-kilometre envelope in WA's South West, making them a popular attraction for visitors in the region. But conservationists and academics who assessed the site say the fire burned beyond guidelines set by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), which manages WA's prescribed burning program. It is now estimated the fire felled or damaged hundreds of trees listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Prescribed burning is the government's primary method of reducing bushfires in fire-prone forests across the state, with a particular focus on heavily forested land in the South West and Great Southern. Internal DBCA documents, obtained by the ABC under Freedom of Information (FOI), show no post-burn actions had been completed at the Giants Block site as of April 23, four months later. The burn closure and evaluation summary, including post-burn actions, burn evaluation summary, lessons learnt, and post-burn checklist, were blank or all listed as incomplete. DBCA initially declined to release of the documents, saying the process took "many months" to complete, but was compelled to release them under FOI laws. Responding to subsequent ABC enquiries, a DBCA spokesperson said an assessment was completed a month later, on May 30. Two weeks after the December burn, members of the Walpole-Nornalup National Park Association (WNNPA) and the WA Forest Alliance (WAFA) assessed the damage. Uralla Luscomb-Pedro compiled the group's findings into a report. "After the burn, I went into the burn site and counted the fire-felled trees over an area of around 28 hectares … I counted 60 fire-felled trees." WNNPA and WAFA have long opposed prescribed burns in the area, arguing the practice causes more environmental damage than it protects. But conservationists said the department had turned a blind eye to the damage. "There's been a very strong, continued public push to try and get this issue acknowledged by the department, and that hasn't happened," Ms Luscomb-Pedro said. "They have been perhaps brick-walling us and not acknowledging the issue." The DBCA spokesperson said the burn met three criteria for a successful burn, including burning a minimum of 80 per cent of the area, and defoliating no more than 10 per cent of mature tingle and karri canopy. But they conceded the burn scorched more than the targeted 40 per cent of acceptable karri and tingle tree crowns. A report following a trial burn of the same plot in 1997, conducted by the then Department of Conservation and Land Management, stated 10 trees per 100 hectares was the highest acceptable loss. DBCA's criteria appear to place no cap on felling of trees during burns. As part of the burn program, a research collaboration between DBCA and Perth-based research institutions has been launched to look at the effect of fire on the state's biodiversity. Murdoch University ecologist Joe Fontaine is managing the flora evaluation and challenged the department's findings. "How DBCA are structured, in terms of the resources they have, there's not currently invested in doing post-burn monitoring," Dr Fontaine said. "There's monitoring to make sure [the fires] are not going to escape or it's not still burning, but there's no regular monitoring program in terms of fire effects on plants and animals." Dr Fontaine said an assessment completed by his team found hundreds of trees had been felled in the fire, and scorching of canopies went beyond department guidelines. Dr Fontaine said for decades, the department knew tingle forests were susceptible to fire damage, but resisted calls to reform the practice for fear it would impact on burning in other areas. "If you let one thing go, then you're going to have to start letting other stuff go, and it's going to unravel the whole system." DBCA's 2023–24 annual report shows over 100,000 hectares of forest in the department's three south-west forest regions were burnt as part of its prescribed burning program. A further 5,000,000-plus-hectares were managed under prescribed burning conditions in the Kimberley, Pilbara, Goldfields, Midwest, Wheatbelt and South Coast. Dr Fontaine said prescribed burning had proven to be an effective tool in some parts of the state, including jarrah-rich forests, but was less practical in tingle-rich areas where the mitigation benefits were fewer. "In the late 90s, there was an exploration of [prescribed burning] and the recommendation was no more than 10 trees per 100 hectares," he said. "In this case, depending on how you calculate it, it's over 100 trees per hectare." Minister for the Great Southern Reece Whitby, who was environment minister when the burn took place, defended the department's approach. But he conceded a better balance was needed. "There have been some devastating fires in this part of the world that have actually claimed lives in recent years, so there needs to be that balance between keeping the community safe but also protecting the natural environment," he said. "DBCA, through its mitigating program, is also investing and getting involved with universities to research what the right balance is." However, Dr Fontaine said there was a political element to the government's decision making. "It's fascinating to me that DBCA haven't quite grasped that they could just let this one go. "They could say, 'You know what, we're going to let red tingle go through to the keeper and stop burning it'. 'The amount of political goodwill they would get from that would be massive. "But this is the hill they're going to die on."
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Yahoo
Major crackdown coming to Aussie travel hotspot amid surge in illegal camping
Authorities in one of the country's most popular travel destinations are preparing for a more coordinated crackdown on illegal camping ahead of the 2025–26 summer season. It follows a noticeable spike in unauthorised stays and local complaints during peak tourism months. The Shire of Augusta-Margaret River council, south of Perth, said the new approach will see rangers working more closely with Western Australia's Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), to crack down on illegal camping, bad behaviour and littering. "DBCA faces similar peak season challenges as the Shire — managing larger areas, multiple responsibilities and limited resources," Shire President Andrea Selvey said this week. '"To protect our region's unique environment, we're working more closely with DBCA and plan to coordinate our response to peak season in future. We're also engaging with the community to identify measures to address illegal camping and increased day use at popular sites." A Shire representative told Yahoo News on Wednesday further details would become available in the coming months. The move comes amid growing community frustration over the environmental and social impacts of illegal camping, which has in the past included increased public defecation and heightened fire risks. Despite the problem, WA's Parks and Wildlife Service reportedly issued fines in fewer than 10 per cent of its interactions with campers last summer, prompting renewed scrutiny of enforcement practices. Back in February, Yahoo News reported on locals' frustration over what they described as a lack of action in managing the annual surge. After the Shire posted to social media urging tolerance and environmental responsibility among residents, locals hit back and argued that the call for responsibility should be directed at visitors, not the rate-payers. "It's like Groundhog Day at the Shire. Every year, without fail, the issue of illegal camping, waste disposal, sanitation and bushfire risk catches the Shire by 'surprise'. It's long past due that the Shire got proactive and managed this annual problem," one passionate man wrote. "It's not the Shire residents causing the issues, it's the travellers. They're the ones who need this message,' a local woman said, adding that most visitors likely don't follow the Shire's social media pages. The council said it is also working to involve the broader community, consulting locals to develop solutions around illegal camping and overcrowded day-use areas. A DBCA spokesperson said the department is committed to upholding the laws and preserving the area. "The department continues to work closely with stakeholders like the shire to strike the right balance between welcoming visitors, keeping them safe, and protecting the region's environmental and cultural values," the spokesperson said. Residents erupt at council as illegal tourist act soars Illegal camping spirals as council takes 'compassionate' approach Aussies warned over new $464 fine for 'common' camping act "Ahead of the 2025–26 peak visitation season, DBCA will continue to identify and implement compliance priorities and strategies, including focusing on illegal camping hotspots, coordinating efforts with local government, and disrupting large-scale illegal gatherings in collaboration with WA Police." The region, known for its natural beauty and growing popularity with tourists and van travellers, has faced increasing strain on public spaces, prompting mounting calls for clearer regulation, better signage, and more sustainable planning. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@ You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
