FIRE PLANNING FOR WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT - A DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEM FORNADGEE-NATURE-RESERVE, AUSTRALIA

This paper describes a decision support system for generating fire man agement plans which address predefined wildlife management objectives for a nature conservation reserve. Given limited knowledge of how low intensity fire would affect wildlife species, the expert reasoning of researchers was used to postulate fire response curves showing how hig h intensity fire affects vegetation structure and hence wildlife popul ation density through time. These fire response curves and knowledge o f the habitat preferences of wildlife species provided the best availa ble information upon which to frame decision rules advocating prescrib ed burning at low intensity to manipulate wildlife habitat. Decision r ules were also framed for protecting recreation sites, limiting fire s pread, and reducing the risk of wildfire ignition. Once the decision r ules were quantified, the LUPIS land use planning and information syst em was used to derive and map burning options reflecting different wil dlife management strategies.