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Guide 2 of 5

The two answers the Noosa Biosecurity Plan gives a landowner

Once a species has reached a block, the plan offers a landowner two answers. The species is contained where it stands, or it is cleared while clearing it is still the cheaper of the two. The plan compares the two by the size of an infestation and by time.

Noosa Shire's four answers to pests, drawn as four nested rings on paper. Outermost, KEEP OUT, holding fire ants. Next, REMOVE, the plants the plan could clear from the shire, and then CONTAIN, the plants a landowner must hold on their land. Innermost, LIVE WITH, holding the saltmarsh mosquito and the biting midge. At the centre, a brown square, THE HOUSE. It is a diagram, not a map, and it is drawn in order rather than to scale. Each ring's label opens a guide. KEEP OUT a sighting goes to the national program Fire ants. Noosa Council: “We don’t want them in Noosa Shire.” five invasive plant species already brought under control REMOVE cleared only with residents and landowners 10 priority invasive plants that could potentially be eradicated CONTAIN the landowner keeps it on their property landowners must control invasive species on their land LIVE WITH the marsh is treated the yard is yours saltmarsh mosquito biting midge THE HOUSE and the one protected animal a licensed technician Four answers, drawn in order. A diagram, not a map.
Noosa Shire's four answers to pests, as four bands indented one inside the next, from KEEP OUT at the top through REMOVE and CONTAIN to LIVE WITH, with THE HOUSE last. It is a diagram, not a map. Each band opens its guide. KEEP OUT a sighting goes to the national program Fire ants. Noosa Council: “We don’t want them in Noosa Shire.” five invasive plant species already brought under control REMOVE cleared only with residents and landowners 10 priority invasive plants that could potentially be eradicated CONTAIN the landowner keeps it on their property landowners must control invasive species on their land LIVE WITH the marsh is treated; the yard is yours the saltmarsh mosquito the biting midge THE HOUSE a licensed technician and the one protected animal
Four answers, drawn in order. A diagram, not a map.

What the plan is, and where it reaches

The Noosa Biosecurity Plan is not a council preference. Queensland's Biosecurity Act 2014 requires every local government to have a biosecurity plan for its own area, and Noosa's plan is also a key action of the Noosa Environment Strategy 2019. Its reach is the whole shire: the plan reaches every piece of land in the Noosa local government area. Its eradication fact sheet names 10 priority invasive species found in Noosa Shire that, with concerted effort, could potentially be eradicated.

Under the Act, the responsibility underneath the plan is shared between public and private landowners, who are answerable for managing the plant and animal pests on their land. The reason the state takes it seriously is in the same sentence: invasive species threaten agriculture, biodiversity and the community, and not only the block they are standing on.

The first answer: containment

Where the plan names a species for containment, the duty is put on the land: the species on the list are to be contained on the property that holds them. Containment is not removal. The species stays where it is, the landowner holds it there, and the work is the standing kind that continues from one year to the next.

The second answer: clearing a small patch

The plan's second answer is arithmetic rather than principle. Where an infestation is small, or could be cleared within five years, the plan's own arithmetic says clearing it costs a landowner less than holding it. Five years is the measure the plan uses to draw the line between a patch worth clearing and an infestation worth holding.

One block, two patches

The two answers are easiest to hold apart on a single made-up block, since the plan itself applies to every block in the shire and asks the same two questions of each of them.

Take one block anywhere in the shire with the same listed species in two places. The first patch is small, and a landowner could reasonably clear it inside five years. The plan's own arithmetic points one way for that patch: clearing it costs less than holding it year after year. The second patch is established, and five years of work would not shift it. There the plan points the other way, and what it asks for is containment, the species held on the property that carries it. The species is the same in both patches, and the duty is the same duty; what separates them is only the size of the patch and the five years.

Neither answer is the whole of the plan. It sets out 14 management actions in all, covering continued regulation, better knowledge of where invasive species are and how many there are, raising awareness in the community, more management of wild dogs in areas of koala habitat, climate change, and a look at other ways of controlling pests.

What counts as a feral animal

The plan's subject is pest animals and plants, and the Act draws a line around the animals it means. A feral animal, in the Biosecurity Act 2014's own dictionary, is one that is living in a wild state and is not being farmed or kept for any other purpose. The same dictionary carries the plan's other key term: an invasive animal is a species that has, or is likely to have, an adverse impact on a biosecurity consideration because of its introduction, spread or increase in numbers in an area, and the definition includes a species that is prohibited matter or restricted matter.

Where to ask about a species

The plan is a council document, and the counter for it is the council's own: for more information on the Noosa Biosecurity Plan 2020 and on invasive species, the number to ring is the Council customer service centre on 5329 6500. That is where a landowner can ask which category a species falls into, which is the question this guide cannot finish on its own.

This guide keeps to what the council publishes about the two answers themselves: the duty to contain, the five years, and one block where the two of them meet.