138 Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities
planning practices, including governance and reporting on recovery progress.
Opportunities exist to build the Strategy model and align with other programs to
capture a larger, national representative set of species that can meet national and
international reporting requirements better and more effectively
Introduction
Monitoring, evaluation and reporting are integral to biodiversity conservation
policy and practice. Such a framework enables setting of evidence-based policy and
management objectives, tracking of biodiversity status and measuring the
effectiveness and adaptation of management interventions. Management is likely to
be more cost effective, efficient and supported by the community where that
management is evidence-based, and subject to measures of effectiveness.
A complex framework of agreements, legislation, policy and planning regimes
across Australia provides for the protection of threatened species and ecological
communities. Implicit in this framework is the need to report on efficacy of
conservation effort, at multiple scales. Under Australia’s system of government,
responsibility for environmental protection and regulation is collectively
undertaken by the Commonwealth (federal), state and territory governments. The
respective roles and responsibilities of each level of government are established to
ensure a coordinated and complementary approach is undertaken on biodiversity
conservation issues.
Although the state and territory governments have primary constitutional and
legal responsibility for biodiversity management within their jurisdictions, this
chapter focuses on relevant Australian Government responsibilities. Key policies
are identified that collectively provide a strategic framework to identify, protect
and recover threatened species and ecological communities and to report on
conservation progress to the Australian and global communities. The effectiveness
of this framework is reviewed with recommendations on building an improved
national monitoring and reporting framework for threatened species.
Policy context
International agreements
Australia participates in the development and implementation of many
international agreements and conventions responding to biodiversity conservation
and sustainable use issues (see Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council
2010). One of the most significant, the United Nations Convention on Biological
Diversity, obliges all parties to develop and implement national biodiversity
strategies and action plans and to report on implementation of the Convention.
Australia agreed in 2010 to implement the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–
2020, including its 20 measurable, time-bound Aichi Biodiversity Targets (CBD