18 – Designing a monitoring framework for Australian Wildlife Conservancy^243incorporates matched sites ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the fenced areas, supplemented
with data collected from additional plots established within each fenced area
(Fig. 18.2).
Status assessment and reporting
Many approaches have been developed for monitoring biodiversity. For example,
the US National Parks Service’s legislated mission is to protect ‘scenery and the
natural and historic objects and the wild life therein’; in response, the service has
developed the Vital Signs Monitoring program to monitor the status of natural
resources in protected areas (Fancy et al. 2009). In Canada and South Africa, the
monitoring of protected areas is underpinned by the concept of Ecological
Integrity, which encompasses biodiversity, ecosystem function and threats (Timko
and Innes 2009). There is no nationally adopted approach to monitoring
biodiversity in Australia, largely because conservation management is primarily a
responsibility of the states. Nevertheless, the Wentworth Group of Concerned
Scientists (2016) have proposed a monitoring system, Accounting for Nature,
whereby a broad range of environmental assets are evaluated against reference
benchmarks. Scientists working on Australia’s Long-term Ecological Research
Network have also provided guidelines for developing nationally relevant
monitoring programs (Lindenmayer et al. 2015).
AWC has drawn on these approaches and the broader monitoring literature to
design its Ecohealth monitoring framework. The major steps in applying the
Ecohealth framework to AWC’s national network of sanctuaries are as follows: (1)
defining what to report on; (2) developing conceptual models; (3) prioritising and
selecting indicators; (4) developing sampling design and monitoring protocols; and
Fig. 18.2. Integration of monitoring and research in AWC’s Pilliga forest project. Plants and animals are
monitored at sites located systematically across the project area (left panel). Regionally extinct mammals will
be reintroduced to a fenced area (centre panel). AWC will conduct research to investigate the response of
extant biota to the reintroductions, contrasting the response of plants and animals inside and outside the
fenced area, before and after reintroductions (a BACI design). Additional survey sites (stars) have been added
inside the fenced area to provide sufficient statistical power for the research project (right panel).