Environs Kimberley and Charles Darwin University have been supporting desert ranger groups since 2018 to understand how fire patterns have changed in the desert since European colonisation, how that is affecting vegetation structure and native fauna, and how rangers can inform and adapt their fire management to better protect country.

This project has recently been bolstered through an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant to bring in additional scientific research capacity. That’s how I have joined the project. Hi, I am Kristina, a CDU post-doctoral researcher who will be working on the project for the next three years.

Kristina Macdonald (CDU) holding a Pygmy Desert Monitor

The rangers use fire during the cool season to try to reduce the impacts of wildfire on Country. Fire management can reduce the size of fires, increase the number of fire ages and vegetation structure in the landscape, and help protect long unburnt vegetation.

But how do these fire regime components affect native biodiversity? In May we went out on two surveys to learn more about Country, cuddle small animals and gather data to help answer this question. The first survey was with the Karajarri Rangers and the second with the Nyangumarta Rangers.

A Lesser Hairy-footed Dunnart (Sminthopsis youngsoni).

For each survey, we had six to eight sites spread across areas with different fire histories (e.g. burnt recently, burnt over 8 years ago) where we caught animals using pitfall traps, funnel traps and camera traps.

During these surveys we caught 519 animals, which means our entire dataset now consists of over 5000 captures. We are planning to undertake more surveys later this year and in 2025 with Karajarri, Nyangumarta, Ngururrpa and Ngurrara Rangers.

Zarim (Nyangumarta) measuring a Pygmy Desert Monitor Varanus eremius

Between surveys, we are working on processing the camera trap images and analysing the data to help answer our key research questions and inform fire management in the Great Sandy Desert.

How fire affects small animals in the desert — a research collaboration The project is in collaboration with Karajarri, Ngurrara, Nyangumarta and Ngururrpa Rangers, the Indigenous Desert Alliance, Kimberley Land Council and Charles Darwin University, with funding from Western Australian NRM Program, Lotterywest, the National Environmental Science Program and the Australian Research Council.

- Kristina Macdonald (Charles Darwin University)