33

Summary: monitoring and adaptive

management of threatened

biodiversity

Benjamin C. Scheele and David B. Lindenmayer

Adaptive management (AM) is necessary for the recovery of many of Australia’s
unique threatened species because practitioners are commonly faced with major
uncertainty about which threats are a priority and can be managed, what are the
management options, and how target species will respond to management
actions. Adaptive management provides a framework for learning and managing
simultaneously, improving our understanding of the impacts of threats, and the
effectiveness of management, thus leading to better conservation outcomes. This
section showcased three diverse case studies (Chapters 30–32) that illustrate the
benefits and potential pitfalls associated with applying AM to the conservation
of threatened biodiversity; several other chapters in the book also present
relevant information (e.g. Chapters 13, 14, 17). The case studies in this section
relate to threatened species, but the learnings apply equally to threatened
ecological communities.
Adaptive management has been variously defined and interpreted, but broadly
equates to ‘... a systematic approach for improving resource management by