The Brigalow Belt is a wide band of acacia-wooded grassland that runs between tropical rainforest of the coast and the semi-arid interior of Queensland and northern New South Wales, Australia. The
Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) divides the Brigalow Belt into two IBRA regions, or bioregions, Brigalow Belt North (BBN) and Brigalow Belt South (BBS). The North and South Brigalow Belt are two of the 85 bioregions across Australia and the 15 bioregions in Queensland. Together they form most of the Brigalow tropical savannaecoregion.[2][3]
This large, complex strip of countryside covers an area of undulating to rugged slopes, consisting of ranges as well as plains of ancient sand and clay deposits, basalt and alluvium. The Northern Brigalow Belt includes the coal producing Bowen Basin, with the nearby Drummond Basin and the fertile Peak Downs areas. The southern belt, which begins with the sandstone gorges of the Carnarvon Range of the Great Dividing Range, runs into the huge Great Artesian Basin. The south-west side includes the farming area of Darling Downs.
In the north, there are tropical summer rains and warm weather all year round, while in the south the winter is slightly cooler and there is more rainfall outside of the summer months. Throughout the belt, the interior, with less than 500 mm of rainfall per year, is drier than the coast, which may have 750 mm or more.
Flora
Brigalow tree, coastal central Queensland.
The characteristic plant communities are woodlands of highly water stress tolerant brigalow (Acacia harpophylla), a slender acacia tree which thrives on the clay soil and once covered much of the area especially the fertile lowlands. Most of the brigalow has been cleared to make agricultural land, but the Queensland Bottle Tree is often left uncleared due to its leaves being fodder for cattle. Eucalypt woodlands of silver-leaved and narrow-leaved ironbarks, poplar box and other boxes, blackbutt and coolibah are also intact primarily on the higher slopes.[4][5][6][7][8][9][clarification needed]
Dichanthium grasslands are another typical habitat of the area while pockets of thicker woodland of brigalow mixed with Casuarina cristata and ooline occur in moister valleys and vine thickets, wetlands, and softwood scrubs are sometimes found although in their undeveloped state, these specialised micro-habitats are rare today. There is a particularly rich variety of habitats in areas such as Isla Gorge and Blackdown Tableland in the sandstone belt of the Carnarvon Range. The Northern Brigalow Belt is one of fifteen national biodiversity hotspots in Australia.[10]
Map of the Brigalow Belt North, showing protected areas
Together with the Mulga Lands, the Brigalow Belt are where most of Queensland's land clearing is occurring.[14] Much of the brigalow woodland has been cleared or radically reduced to the extent that some wildlife, failing to thrive in the altered environment, has become extinct here with a number of the remaining communities threatened or endangered. The clearance of brigalow and poplar box is ongoing as there are a number of nature reserves of which do protect the various types of habitat found in the Belt including brigalow and eucalyptus woodland, grassland, vine thicket, high peaks, sandstone gorges and wetlands however these tend to be located on the sandstone uplands rather than the fertile lowlands, where the brigalow woodlands are still vulnerable to clearance and are often limited to small areas of parkland.[clarification needed] The grasslands of the region are also under threat from introduced pasture grasses such as buffelgrass and weeds such as Congress weed. One particular threat comes from alterations to natural flow patterns caused by the addition of dams and weirs which impact the riverine and floodplain plant and animal species.[15]
IBRA subregions of the Brigalow Belt North include Townsville Plains, Bogie River Hills, Cape River Hills, Beucazon Hills, Wyarra Hills, Northern Bowen Basin, Belyando Downs, Upper Belyando Floodout, Anakie Inlier, Basalt Downs, Isaac–Comet Downs, Nebo–Connors Ranges, South Drummond Basin and Marlborough Plains.
^Fensham, R.J.; McCosker, J.C.; Cox, M.J. (1998). "Estimating clearance of Acacia-dominated ecosystems in central Queensland using land-system mapping data". Australian Journal of Botany. 46 (2): 305–319. doi:10.1071/bt96129.
^Young, P.A.R., B.A. Wilson, J.C. McCosker, R.J. Fensham, G. Morgan, and P. M. Taylor. 1999. Brigalow Belt. Pages 11/1-11/81 in P. Sattler and R. Williams, editors. The Conservation Status of Queensland's Bioregional Ecosystems. Environmental Protection Agency, Brisbane, Australia
^Thackway, R., and I.D. Creswell. 1995. An Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia: A framework for establishing a national system of reserves, Version 4. Australian Nature Conservation Agency, Canberra, Australia.
^Arnold, S.; Thornton, C.; Baumgartl, T. (2012). "Ecohydrological feedback as a land restoration tool in the semi-arid Brigalow Belt, QLD, Australia". Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. 163: 61–71. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2012.05.020.
^Arnold, S., Y. Kailichova, and T. Baumgartl. 2014. Germination of Acacia harpophylla (Brigalow) seeds in relation to soil water potential: implications for rehabilitation of a threatened ecosystem. PeerJ, https://peerj.com/articles/268/
Sattler, P. S. and R. D. Williams (1999) (eds) The Conservation Status of Queensland’s Bioregional ecosystems. Environmental Protection Agency, Brisbane
