1 – Introduction: making it count^3High levels of coordination and management
There are a small number of effective monitoring programs for threatened species
that provide accurate data on national trends, are linked to management (e.g.
plans, responses, triggers), and whose results are reported publicly and regularly.
Examples of these successful programs are presented in this book (see e.g. Chapters
11–14) and elsewhere (e.g. Lindenmayer and Gibbons 2012). These successful
programs often share certain characteristics (summarised in detail in Chapters
3–9): they tend to involve species with small distributions, occurring at accessible
sites, and that are reasonably easy to detect. In contrast, species with large
distributions, substantial methodological challenges (e.g. poor detectability,
irruptive, highly mobile/migratory), and in relatively inaccessible locations, are less
likely to be monitored well (e.g. princess parrots Polytelis alexandrae, bilbies
Macrotis lagotis, Gouldian finches Erythrura gouldiae). The key difference here is
that for species with small ranges, or that are easily detectable, monitoring can be
conducted by a single ‘project’ (conducted by just one individual or institution),
while species with large ranges or methodological challenges require coordination
among several parties. High public profile can sometimes cut across this
generalisation, by promoting support for monitoring of ‘difficult’ species. However,
even in these cases, there is usually one or a few individuals that champion the
program, ensuring continuity of funding, implementation and reporting (e.g.
migratory shorebirds, Chapter 11; malleefowl, Chapter 31). These patterns
highlight genuine challenges of coordinating monitoring across institutions,
jurisdictions and projects.
National systems for roll-up and reporting
Assuming that threatened species and ecological communities were monitored well
enough to discern national trends or to understand the benefits of widely applied
conservation actions, there are no systems or institutions in place to promote data
consistency and quality, and to enable the aggregation of data, its analysis and
reporting. To assess trends in threatened biodiversity, national overviews still tend to
use simple changes in the tallies of threatened taxa and ecological communities
(Cresswell and Murphy 2017), which is widely acknowledged to be misleading
(Possingham et al. 2002; Chapter 10). Previous policy directives to establish national
biodiversity programs (Commonwealth of Australia 2016; Natural Resource
Management Ministerial Council 2010) have failed to manifest, partly because other
priorities (within an environment of rapidly diminishing funds) have often appeared
to be more urgent. However, there are isolated examples of national commitments for
long-term funding for monitoring components of biodiversity (e.g. the Long-term
Ecological Research Network, http://tern.org.au/; although even this has recently lost
its funding). Also, there are examples of non-government programs for national