Cape Otway Ecological Burns Program

Working with partner organisations, including the Country Fire Authority, the Conservation Ecology Centre has led a 5-year program to re-establish a fire regime on the Cape Otway.

The woodlands on the private properties of Cape Otway have undergone catastrophic decline in the past 6 years due to intense browsing by an overabundant koala population.

Changes to land management and interruption to the area’s fire regime broke the cycle of seedling recruitment and led to an intensification of the shrubby mid-storey.

The program has now treated a large swathe of woodland and we are seeing improvements to both species diversity and beneficial changes to habitat structure.