The Department of Environment and Science (DES) says more than 4,600 hectares of land is to become protected habitat for wildlife.
The Department said funding would be provided to dozens of property owners so they could safeguard the nature refuges.
Minister for the Environment and the Great Barrier Reef, Meaghan Scanlon launched the project on 30 hectares of land on the southern Gold Coast that is to be declared a nature refuge.
Ms Scanlon said she wanted the environment to bounce back in the same way as the State’s economy, with rangers helping to maintain the newly protected areas.
“This announcement increases the size of Queensland’s protected areas to 14.3 million hectares, or 8.26 per cent, of the State’s total land area,” Ms Scanlon said.
“More than $500,000 will also be distributed across 90 projects to help Queensland private nature refuge landholders enhance conservation values and reduce the impact of intense bushfires on their properties.”
She said the State had the largest private protected area network in Australia by land area, covering a diversity of ecosystems with varying susceptibility to intense bushfire.
“We’ve made funding available to commence fire management planning on nature refuges to help reduce the risk of fire detrimentally impacting these important natural areas,” Ms Scanlon said.
“Our nature refuges stand to benefit from a professional fire management plan to guide future management that is specifically designed to reduce bushfire impacts on conservation values,” she said.
