12 – A tale of threatened frogs: demonstrating the value of long-term monitoring^175the principles of threatened species conservation science and adaptive
management, and the rationale and merits of monitoring.● (^) A champion is required – either one or a handful of dedicated individuals –
who can stick with the program, articulate the merits of monitoring to
managers and resource decision makers, and ultimately ‘hand on the baton’ to
successors. Professional opportunities need to be created that foster and
nurture the development and retention of these champions.
● (^) The capacity to implement long-term monitoring should reside with relevant
natural resource management agencies or organisations, either government or
NGOs. Some government or other land manager support is essential: either to
undertake the monitoring, support champions, and/or in turn support and
assist the increasing number of other non-government natural resource
management organisations involved with threatened species conservation with
implementation and integration (across jurisdictions). Government support
needs to be at the very least in-kind staff time, so that monitoring programs are
not totally reliant on short-term, or sporadic, initiative funds. The current
trend of governments withdrawing resources and support from this area needs
to be strongly countered with more compelling arguments for the value of
increasing investment.
● (^) Good governance of threatened species recovery programs is essential. This
requires: thoughtful selection of advisory groups (i.e. recovery teams) that
ref lect various areas of expertise needed and relevant land or water
management stakeholders; and a well-articulated strategic plan (i.e. Recovery
Plans) that follows the rationale established by Caughley and Gunn (1996) with
‘specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely’ actions.
Many of the points listed above are becoming harder, not easier, to realise,
given current funding models and reduced employment stability and security.
These impediments need to be resolved in order to create environments and
opportunities to establish and maintain sound, long-term monitoring programs.
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