To ensure the viability of a conservation area, environmental weeds will need to be managed. In fact, most Covenant Management Plans and Covenant Agreements require landowners to manage their conservation areas to ensure no degradation of the land occurs.
While landowners are encouraged to manage weeds in their covenant area, it is important to correctly identify which plants are weeds and which plants are native. The South East Queensland Restoration Framework and Guidelines provides a list of commonly encountered weeds and how to correctly treat them.
Alternatively, please visit the environmental education page to access workshops that can help you improve your weed identification and treatment skills.
When landowners refer to 'cleaning up' their property they often also refer to the removal of fallen logs, branches or trees in their covenant area, or even perhaps the growth of native plants.
A ground cover of native plants, logs and fallen branches actually provide fauna with increased habitat and shelter options and is commonly known as increasing habitat complexity. Generally speaking, the higher the habitat complexity, the greater the biodiversity and/or abundance of fauna.
While some landowners may view this habitat complexity as being 'messy', it actually provides greater habitat opportunities for fauna in the area, and as such, landowners are encouraged to leave these features within their covenant wherever possible.
It is the landowner's responsibility to check their bushfire management plan for necessary maintenance requirements.