SLIDE 1 Indicators for Significant Native Species and Ecological Communities
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Department of Sustainability and Environment
Presentations were made by individuals as theme coordinators of Audit
- activity. They do not represent the views of the National Land & Water
Resources Audit or respective agencies. You are encouraged to discuss these findings with the various partners and contributors that have provided this information.
SLIDE 2
What did we do?
Project objectives Literature review Questionnaire Workshops Design principles Issues BAWG presentation
SLIDE 3
Design principles
Useful at a range of scales Enable aggregation Easy to understand Representative Reliable (or at least explicit about reliability) Cost effective implementation Flexible – encourage organisations to get on board
SLIDE 4
What did we learn?
Major challenge: ‘from Blue Whales to Butterflies’ Committed to MERI principles – no practice to match Conservation status is key indicator
Has some ‘issues’ Change due to improved knowledge Poor fit with regional focus – averages changes
Monitoring programs are based around recovery plans or
major projects (e.g. Western Shield)
Standard monitoring techniques not really appropriate
SLIDE 5
What is happening elsewhere?
CBD Europe US Canada NZ UK States and territories
SLIDE 6
UK Biodiversity Action Reporting System
SLIDE 7 What should we do?
I UCN Red List national scale only! if an indicator, correct for artifact changes need equivalent for ecological communities Trends
- ccurrence-level, not whole of species/community
‘assets’ and ‘threats’ Need to optimise – representativeness vs rigour Good indicator for regions – link to activity
SLIDE 8
What next?
Protocol drafted Seeking endorsement for general direction Should be split into two or three discrete indicators Project plan to finalise Working group to undertake Agencies to liaise re systems and processes
SLIDE 9
What next?
Criteria for inclusion of species and ecological communities on the
basis of their ecological, evolutionary or cultural importance;
Systems and processes for aggregating IUCN Red List data for
significant native species;
Improved alignment of State and Territory categories and criteria for
identifying ecological communities at risk;
Measures to address the representation of reliability and uncertainty in
status and trend data;
Standards for access, use and interpretation of data at various levels;
SLIDE 10 What next?
Standards for recording and interpreting trend information Options to reduce bias and subjectivity in the collection of
expert opinion, and
Options for integrating data on “trends of occurrences of
significant native species and ecological communities, and the threats affecting them” with management activity, to enable more reliable analysis of effectiveness.
Measures to manage the risk that availability of information
- n the precise spatial location of certain taxa or ecological
communities may lead to deliberate damage, destruction or theft.
