Threatened species audit finds Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment unable to demonstrate efficiency

While guidelines are in place to establish when species or ecological communities are eligible for a "threatened" listing, the procedure does not meet all the requirements of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and is not complete, up to date or consistently implemented, an audit has found.

The process to determine which species or communities should be listed, as well as key threatening processes, could be improved to ensure it identifies those that would have the greatest impact on achieving the act's objectives, according to the auditors.

While most listing assessments were completed within statutory time frames, some species assessments and most ecological community assessments required extensions, the audit found.

Recovery plans, threat-abatement plan reviews and changes to the threatened species list were not completed within their required time frames.

Measurement, monitoring and reporting was also not sufficient, the audit found, with some threatened species being monitored, but most going unchecked.

The Australian National University Fenner School of Environment and society director Saul Cunningham said the conclusion confirmed what environmental scientists had been saying for some time.

Professor Cunningham said historically a threatened listing had been no guarantee of a recovery plan and follow up steps for species recovery routinely didn't happen.

"What's been revealed in the audit is alarming, and what's even more alarming are the actual outcomes, which is a continuing bad trajectory for too many species in Australia," he said.

Under the Conservation Act, which provides Australia's national framework to identify, protect and manage native species, Environment Minister Sussan Ley is required to maintain a list of threatened species and ecological communities.

READ ALSO:

The minister must record species and communities in different categories based on their risk of extinction and maintain a list of key threatening processes which threaten the survival, abundance, or development of a species or community.

The act provides for conservation plans to be developed for listed threatened species, threatened ecological communities and key threatening processes, including a schedule for periodic evaluation.

Professor Cunningham said while community involvement in the protection of species was a positive thing, currently too much responsibility to act was put on conservation groups and concerned individuals.

"One of the consequences of that is that certain species do have strong community organisations that pay them a lot of attention," he said.

"But there's a lot of other species there that don't have quite the same level of engaged community showing concern for them.

"That's why we need to do more than simply rely on the community, we need more government action."

Published on Thursday, the audit made six recommendations including the establishment of a framework for monitoring listing assessments.

In response to the report, the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment said all six recommendations had been accepted and would be implemented in a timely manner.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: