7 – The extent and adequacy of monitoring for Australian threatened freshwater fish species^95
agencies: they were often initially designed as surveys; were not designed to be long
term; the power to detect change was rarely explicitly considered; and data storage,
availability, and reporting were usually issues that would be dealt with ‘later’.
There are some state-based monitoring programs for certain taxa that, if
judged within that spatial scale, are performing well. However, there is little or no
coordination between state monitoring programs (some jurisdictions within a
species range do not monitor at all) and, where monitoring does occur across
multiple jurisdictions, often there are different sampling methodologies, sampling
periodicity, site coverage and other issues that limit comparisons and a
consolidated overview. The lack of standardisation between states, lack of readily
accessible data, and the lack of coordination mechanisms between states is a major
shortcoming. National recovery teams provide one potential mechanism to
overcome these constraints and promote improved management and better
conservation outcomes, but currently such teams are not even funded to meet
(Lintermans 2013b). The lack of dedicated funding for threatened fish monitoring
in some states is also a problem, with several species reliant on data collected from
other non-target programs, which in turn are reliant on annual funding bids.
The extent and adequacy of monitoring for EPBC-listed state endemics could
be expected to be better than for multi-jurisdictional taxa, because less
coordination should be required, and a single sampling team would likely do all of
the sampling, so the potential for differences in sampling approaches is eliminated.
However, this was not the case, with no significant differences in the nine metrics
between state endemics and multi-jurisdictional species. However, there were
significant (or near significant) differences between states on all evaluation metrics
except data availability and reporting. Tasmania scoring significantly higher than
Queensland and Western Australia on six of the nine metrics, and higher than
Western Australia only for coverage. Victoria, South Australia and New South
Wales each had only one EPBC-listed endemic, and so comparisons with these
states could not be made. The better monitoring scores in Tasmania may ref lect the
composition of the state endemics, with the Tasmanian threatened fish fauna
consisting entirely of galaxiids. These taxa generally occur in smaller streams, and
so are likely more amenable to rigorous sampling.
The value of recovery planning was evident, even if recovery plans were no
longer current, because all nine metrics were significantly higher for species with
recovery plans. The trend away from mandatory preparation of recovery plans
since 2006 (Hawke 2009) is therefore of concern. There are three species that are
included in ecological community (rather than single-species) recovery plans (e.g.
the Great Artesian Basin), and 12 species that are included in ‘group’ recovery
plans (e.g. Tasmanian galaxias, northern river sharks and sawfish). Internationally,
species in multi-species recovery plans have lower rates of implementation of
recovery actions, and poorer recovery trend than those with taxa-specific plans