Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00153:body:0:p14
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00153
Segment Type: other
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Character Range: 37808–40874

and residual impacts remain. Offsets do not mean proposals with unacceptable impacts will be approved (Section 6.2.2 Offsetting).
Nevertheless, restoration and revegetation activities are valuable options for patches lost or degraded by significant impacts. This requires an understanding of the value of the patch to be lost, based on the condition thresholds specified in the Listing Advice (i.e. its size, species composition and structure, and the prevalence of transformer weeds). Any proposals to restore or revegetate habitat to offset the loss of an existing patch need to consider carefully how and where best to implement the action and must include monitoring to ensure its success.

2.2      Key threats
There are numerous threats currently impacting upon Littoral Rainforest, or which may potentially impact the ecological community in the future. The majority of these threats can be considered to be human-mediated as they are either a direct result of human activity or an indirect consequence of human actions. These human-mediated threats interact with natural perturbations to Littoral Rainforest and can result in alterations to the healthy functioning of the ecological community.
What was once a semi-continuous archipelago of patches of Littoral Rainforest along the eastern coast of Australia, has been reduced and fragmented primarily by coastal development, sand mining and agriculture (Bradley & Merrilyn 1992). As Littoral Rainforest is located on, or in close proximity to, the coastline, which is a focal point for human settlement and urbanisation in Australia, coastal development is a key historic and ongoing threat to the ecological community (Lavorel et al. 2015). This distribution also makes Littoral Rainforest highly susceptible to the interacting effects of climate change and sea level rise, both of which exacerbate the existing threats of habitat fragmentation and invasion by transformer weeds (Lavorel et al. 2015). Littoral Rainforest continues to be reduced and fragmented by land clearance, weed invasion, recreational disturbance, animal browsing/grazing, fire and natural disturbance. These threats have serious implications for the long term persistence of Littoral Rainforest, particularly for smaller, isolated patches or heavily degraded patches. Current and ongoing threats to the ecological community are summarised in Table 2 and described below. Further information is available in the Listing Advice and Policy Statement 3.9. Recovery actions (Section 5.4) aim to address these threats in a strategic and cost effective manner.

2.2.1      Urban development
The principal threat to the biodiversity of Littoral Rainforest is the further loss and fragmentation of habitat likely to result from ongoing coastal development, with urban development recognised as a key pressure on Australia's coastal environment (Beeton et al. 2006). The coastal areas of eastern Australia support the majority of the region's population (60-70 percent) (BAAM 2013). Coastal development is likely to intensify over time due to