{"id":1112331,"date":"2026-07-26T13:03:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T13:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1112331\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T13:03:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T13:03:48","slug":"at-fairyland-on-bruny-island-science-and-traditional-knowledge-combine-to-look-after-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1112331\/","title":{"rendered":"At ‘Fairyland’ on Bruny Island, science and traditional knowledge combine to look after nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a sunny winter afternoon, Paul Davis kneels to the ground and sets a patch of vegetation alight.<\/p>\n

He is guided by cultural fire practitioner and Palawa man Jason Smith.<\/p>\n

“As soon as those natives start to brown off, they’re actually telling us they need fire,” Mr Smith says.<\/p>\n

Fire is key to managing this landscape, known as Fairyland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A cultural burn is conducted on a private property at Bruny Island. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

In the 1840s, European colonisers on Lunawuni\/Bruny Island in Tasmania’s south named the property after the little penguins \u2014 also known as fairy penguins \u2014 nesting there.<\/p>\n

About 160 years later, Paul Davis and his family stumbled upon Fairyland in 2002 while looking for a beachside shack to buy.<\/p>\n

“We couldn’t resist, it was such a remarkable place,” he says.<\/p>\n

“The place demands looking after and demands good conservation.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Davis purchased Fairyland in 2002, and made it his mission to conserve the natural values of the property. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

Mr Davis made conserving and restoring the 134-hectare property his mission, and he has brought together a diverse group of people to help him do it \u2014 experts in ecology, nature finance, cultural burning and pyrogeography, as well as volunteers.<\/p>\n

“It’s now really clear to us that the good conservation land management, strongly informed by Indigenous fire practices, is completely compatible with minimising the risk of wildfires,” Mr Davis says.<\/p>\n

\"Rolling<\/p>\n

The property is home to shearwater and little penguin rookeries. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

Fairyland an ‘island ark’ for threatened species<\/p>\n

Fairyland is on an isthmus, a narrow strip of land connecting the north and south parts of Bruny Island, meaning there is ocean on both sides.<\/p>\n

The property contains wetlands, bushland, a shearwater rookery, a penguin rookery and Mr Davis’s shack. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Davis’s dog Billie enjoys accompanying her owner around the property. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

Ecologist Matt Taylor has spent 10 years coming to Fairyland, which he describes as a biodiversity hotspot and an “island ark”.<\/p>\n

“One of the visions that Paul’s had for this property is to share it, and so we’ve been lucky enough to work here with lots of different collaborators tackling things from feral cat management through to revegetation through to potential carbon plantings,” he says.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Matt Taylor is one of multiple experts doing work at the property. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

Bruny Island is one of the federal government’s 20 priority places for protection under its Threatened Species Action Plan.<\/p>\n

Endangered animals spotted at Fairyland include the swift parrot, forty-spotted pardalote and eastern quoll.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the help of volunteers, Mr Davis and Dr Taylor have planted blue gum and white gum trees to restore crucial bird habitat, which was historically cleared for sheep farming.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Davis has planted blue gum and white gum trees on the property to restore bird habitat. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

Dr Taylor has also set up wildlife cameras and acoustic recorders.<\/p>\n

“We use those as a monitoring tool for understanding the populations of both native wildlife like the eastern quoll, but also some of those feral species like cats and deer and rabbits,” he says.<\/p>\n

“A lot of environmental management is not just about protecting the native species but protecting them from those threats and pressures.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Davis bought the 134-hectare property in 2002. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

Tackling funding challenges to private conservation<\/p>\n

Much of the conservation work at Fairyland has been paid for by Mr Davis, but he’s retired now and needs to find new funding sources.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

There are ecologically important wetlands at Fairyland. (ABC News: Mitchell Woolnough)<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Scientists have come to Fairyland to conduct a range of studies. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

Dr Taylor, through his company Ecotec Environmental, is piloting a biodiversity credit framework to give small landholders, including Mr Davis, access to nature-based finance.<\/p>\n

Billionaire couple focus their fortune on conservation \u2014 and profit<\/a><\/p>\n

In the middle of Tasmania sits a 5,000-hectare property once used for sheep grazing. But when the sheep farmers left, an unlikely buyer moved in.<\/p>\n

Biodiversity credits are a voluntary way for businesses to fund projects that improve ecological outcomes “in a trustworthy and outcomes-focused way”, Dr Taylor says.<\/p>\n

Mr Davis has also secured government funding for fire management through the Disaster Ready Fund.<\/p>\n

Not only is Fairyland ecologically significant, but a bushfire could block the exit route to the island’s ferry \u2014 making bushfire prevention even more important.<\/p>\n

Cultural burns heal country and mitigate fire risk<\/p>\n

Large-scale prescribed burns have been criticised for increasing bushfire risk<\/a> and damaging ecosystems.<\/a><\/p>\n

When Jason Smith conducts cultural burns at Fairyland and elsewhere, there is a single ignition source \u2014 giving animals the chance to escape.<\/p>\n

“All the burns that we’ve done through here, hundreds of insects, spiders, lizards, snakes have that chance to get away from the fire,” he says.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jason Smith says fire is integral to managing the landscape.\u00a0 (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

While large burns scorch the earth, Mr Smith says small cultural burns leave healthy ash behind.<\/p>\n

“We want to see that nice black ash in there \u2014 if we’ve got all white ash, that’s usually telling us there was too much fuel in there and it burnt too hot and there’s no nutrients in that for the animals,” he says.<\/p>\n

“This is a relearning that’s going to take a long time, but it’s the only way to do it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Cultural burning is Fairyland’s long-term strategy to managing fire on the property. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

Mr Davis says Fairyland had to figure out how to create the right conditions for cultural burns on the property.<\/p>\n

“Cool burns will be our long-term solution, but you can’t do a cool burn where you’ve got a massive build up of excess mid storey,” he says.<\/p>\n

Heavy machinery is used to remove the mid-storey growth and turn it into mulch.<\/p>\n

“In two or three years’ time, it’s a perfect setting for a cool burn,” Mr Davis says.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Machinery is used to remove the mid storey of vegetation, creating the right circumstances for cultural burning. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

Dr Taylor is helping facilitate knowledge sharing of fire management approaches between Fairyland and traditional owner groups in the Burnett Mary region in Queensland, which includes the island of K’gari.<\/p>\n

“One of the things which we’re really keen to do over the next six to 12 months is bring some of those traditional owners down here to see what’s happening in the south of the country and vice versa,” he says.<\/p>\n

For Mr Davis, it is all part of Fairyland’s ethos.<\/p>\n

“We’d very much like to share what we’ve learned with others,” he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a sunny winter afternoon, Paul Davis kneels to the ground and sets a patch of vegetation alight.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1112332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3843],"tags":[4675,303302,303295,303298,303301,303304,728,290340,90858,204629,303300,303294,203870,290338,303296,303297,12147,70,303303,303293,303299,16,15,204635],"class_list":["post-1112331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-biodiversity","tag-blue-gum","tag-conserve","tag-cultural-burn","tag-disaster-ready-fund","tag-eastern-quoll","tag-environment","tag-fairy-penguin","tag-fire-management","tag-forty-spotted-pardalote","tag-fuel-reduction","tag-isthmus","tag-jason-smith","tag-little-penguin","tag-matt-taylor","tag-paul-davis","tag-regeneration","tag-science","tag-swift-parrot","tag-the-neck","tag-traditional-fire","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-white-gum"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116986426688645437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1112331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1112332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1112331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1112331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1112331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}