What is NRFABCON?
About
About us
The Northern Rivers Fire and Biodiversity Consortium (NRFABCON) is a volunteer-led network working to achieve ecologically sustainable fire management across the Northern Rivers of New South Wales. Through coordination, knowledge-sharing, on-ground projects and research, we help land managers use fire to protect and enhance the region’s biodiversity — while recognising the equal importance of protecting life and property.
Our story
The Northern Rivers Fire and Biodiversity Consortium (NRFABCON) was founded in 2010 by a network of passionate individuals and organisations committed to a landscape-scale approach to fire management. We believe that restoring Good Fire helps sustain the region’s rich biodiversity while playing a vital role in risk management.
NRFABCON grew directly out of two regional conservation blueprints — the Northern Rivers Regional Biodiversity Management Plan and the Border Ranges Rainforest Biodiversity Management Plan — both of which identified inappropriate fire as a major threat to the region’s internationally significant biodiversity.
For its first decade, NRFABCON delivered fire-and-biodiversity projects across the region through a network of working groups and partnerships. After the 2019 fires and devastating 2022 floods, the organisation paused to finalise a number of in-progress projects. A new committee formed in June 2025 and has since been working to rebuild: renewing its governance, re-establishing membership, and reconnecting the network around a clear purpose — being the region’s home for good fire.
Our vision and mission
Our vision: A region where biodiversity flourishes because land managers work together to use and to restore Good Fire across the landscape.
Our mission: To help public and private land managers understand the vital role of fire in maintaining our region’s biodiversity, and to support the appropriate use of fire that secures and enhances the region’s biodiversity values.
What we do
Coordinate fire-and-biodiversity effort across tenures, agencies and communities.
Build knowledge — gathering, translating and sharing good-fire science, practice and mapping.
Deliver projects that put appropriate fire back into the landscape and recover threatened species and habitats.
Shape frameworks — contributing the regional evidence base to fire, planning and disaster-adaptation policy.
Support research into fire and biodiversity, and the monitoring of outcomes.
Our track record
Since 2010, NRFABCON has led or supported fire-and-biodiversity work across the region — from landscape-scale forest-health and dieback recovery, to threatened-species projects, to community fire workshops — with funders including the NSW Environmental Trust, Local Land Services, the Australian Government and local councils. As we rebuild through 2026, a fuller account of our projects will follow..
Our region
NRFABCON works across the Northern Rivers of NSW — roughly 10,290 km² stretching from the Queensland border south to below Evans Head and inland towards the Tablelands, spanning the local government areas of Tweed, Byron, Ballina, Lismore, Kyogle and Richmond Valley.
It is one of Australia’s most biodiverse regions: a meeting point of temperate and tropical species, home to the Gondwana Rainforests World Heritage Area and numerous species and ecological communities that need either regular fire or to be protected from fire. Getting fire right here matters more than almost anywhere.
Get Involved
Membership is reopening in 2026. If you manage land, work in fire or conservation, research these systems, or want to support our work — we'd like to hear from you.