Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00482:reg:2:p1
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2024L00482
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2 (pt 1/7)
Character Range: 53479–56464

2               Threats

2.1                 Historical causes of decline
The Swift Parrot's area of occupancy has declined significantly since European settlement, as can be inferred from the extent of habitat loss. For example, 83 per cent of box-ironbark habitat (the principal wintering habitat of the Swift Parrot on the mainland) has been cleared in Victoria, and 70 per cent has been cleared in New South Wales (Siversten 1993; Robinson and Traill 1996; Environment Conservation Council 2001). White Box-Yellow Gum-Blakely's Red Gum woodland, another important habitat in New South Wales, has been reduced to less than 4 per cent of its pre-European extent on the south-western slopes and southern tablelands of New South Wales (Saunders 2003). In Tasmania there has also been significant historical loss and alteration of habitat within the primary breeding and foraging range, along the south-east coast. This has included the loss of approximately 70 per cent of grassy Tasmanian Blue Gum forest (Saunders and Tzaros 2011) and over 90 per cent of Black Gum – Brookers Gum forest (Department of Environment and Energy 2018).

2.2                 Current threatening processes
The main threats in Tasmania to the survival of the Swift Parrot are the predation of nestlings and incubating females by the introduced Sugar Glider, ongoing loss or degradation of breeding and foraging habitat through a range of processes including, forestry operations, land clearing and wildfire. The main threats on the Australian mainland include habitat loss from land clearing for agriculture and urban development, and to a lesser extent forest harvesting. Other identified threats include competition for foraging and nesting resources, mortality from collisions with human-made objects and impacts from climate change.

2.2.2 Habitat loss and alteration

Forestry and land clearing
Loss of potential breeding habitat in Tasmania via clearance for conversion to agriculture, native forest logging and intensive native forest silviculture practices continues to reduce the amount of available Swift Parrot nesting and foraging habitat and it therefore remains a significant threat to the continued persistence of the species (Saunders et al. 2007, Saunders and Tzaros 2011, Webb et al. 2017, Webb et al. 2019).
There are no comprehensive estimates assessing loss of potential breeding habitat through forest harvesting or land clearing in recent years across the species breeding range. However one case study using the Southern Forests Swift Parrot Important Breeding Area (SPIBA) (one of 15 key breeding regions delineated for management purposes, Forest Practices Authority, 2010) estimated that forest harvesting between 1997 and 2016 had resulted in as much as 23 per cent of identified potential nesting habitat being lost in this time, noting that prior to 2007, this region was not recognised as supporting Swift Parrot breeding (Webb et al. 2019).
Much of the Swift Parrot potential