Biodiversity monitoring in Australia's rangelands: Introduction

Foulkes, Jeff; Watt, A. D.

doi:10.1111/j.1442-9993.2004.01348.x

Cited by 6 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…Hopkins and McKenzie (1994) similarly proposed a series of permanently marked benchmarks for monitoring trends in biodiversity in arid and semi‐arid Australia. More recently, the outcomes of a workshop to progress biodiversity monitoring in the rangelands make it clear that ground‐based monitoring will be an important component of any system (Smyth et al . 2003).…”

Section: Characteristics Of the Biodiversity Monitoring System Being mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There were inevitable temptations to replace an old technique with a better, or at least with a newly developed technique, as knowledge of the rangeland environment increased. This will be a particular issue for the designers of a biodiversity monitoring system since the attributes of interest will include a large and diverse mix of biota and consequent indicators (see Smyth et al . 2003) and other papers in this thematic issue of Austral Ecology ).…”

Section: Experience Of a Broad‐scale Monitoring System In Western Ausmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is particularly true in Australia's rangelands, and there has been considerable recent activity towards the design of such a system (Anon 2001; Whitehead et al . 2001; Smyth et al . 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Making the biodiversity monitoring system sustainable: Design issues for large‐scale monitoring systems

Watson¹,

Novelly²

2004

Austral Ecology

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There is strong demand for information about the status of, and trends in, Australia's biodiversity. Almost inevitably, this demand for information has led to demand for a broad-scale monitoring system. However, the decision to embark on a monitoring system should only be made once it has been established that a monitoring system is the optimal way to inform management. We stress the need to invest resources in assessing whether a monitoring system is necessary before committing resources to the design and implementation of the system. Current debate associated with the design of a biodiversity monitoring system has similarities to the debate within the range management profession in the early 1970s. The experience with range monitoring shows that large-scale monitoring systems such as those being proposed will require considerable resources, recurrently expended into the distant future, but with only a limited ability to adapt to new demands. Those involved in any biodiversity monitoring system will need to understand the implications of investing in a long-term monitoring programme. Monitoring sustainability will only be possible if the monitoring system is itself sustainable. We discuss a number of issues that need to be addressed before the system is at all sustainable. These attributes are a mix of biophysical, social and institutional attributes and highlight the view that monitoring systems of the type being suggested comprise an unusual mixture of attributes not found in typical scientific activity. The present paper is not a technical manual, but rather considers some of the design issues associated with designing and implementing large-scale monitoring systems.

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Section: Characteristics Of the Biodiversity Monitoring System Being mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Experience Of a Broad‐scale Monitoring System In Western Ausmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Making the biodiversity monitoring system sustainable: Design issues for large‐scale monitoring systems

Watson¹,

Novelly²

2004

Austral Ecology

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“…Similarly, some enterprises hope to set up environmental management systems to showcase the improved environmental management of native plants and animals and other ecosystem services on their holdings. The ways to do this at an enterprise level and even at broader regional scales in Australia's rangelands, however, are still poorly known (see the Commonwealth Department of Environment and Heritage and CSIRO report on biodiversity monitoring in Australia's rangelands; Smyth et al . 2003, Anderson et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2004; and Watson & Novelly 2004). It is important to note that the present paper evolved from an earlier review written to provide background information to stimulate discussions in a workshop (Smyth et al 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of Australia's rangelands and key design issues for monitoring biodiversity

Smyth¹,

James²

2004

Austral Ecology

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We explored the key issues that are most likely to influence any set of guiding principles for developing biodiversity monitoring programmes in Australia's rangelands. We defined the Australian rangelands and came up with an overview of their climate extremes, land-use pressures and biodiversity loss, and then focussed on issues underpinning the design phase of any monitoring programme. Using Noss's 1990 framework of compositional, structural and functional attributes of biodiversity and its new revisions by others, we showed how the elusive, abstract concept of biodiversity can be used to identify many measurable attributes that can form a minimum and necessary set of indicators for any biodiversity monitoring task. We then described the steps in the monitoring process, with a particular focus on the reasons for monitoring biodiversity as they strongly influence the selection of indicators. We concluded by compiling a table of key issues as background information for developing guiding principles (Table 4). The list is by no means an exhaustive list for the design phase but it does indicate that considerable attention needs to be given to this phase when developing monitoring programmes. We have intentionally not addressed the equally important issues associated with the planning and delivery phases of developing a monitoring programme, as Wallace et al . and Watson and Novelly cover these in their papers in the present issue of Austral Ecology .

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A framework for assessing regional biodiversity condition under changing environments of the arid Australian rangelands

Brandle¹,

Chewings

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et al. 2009

Rangel. J.

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Rangelands support many ecosystem services important to humans, including climate regulation. They also have a significant role to play in the mitigation of greenhouse gases. However, the capacity of any rangeland to do this depends foremost upon the condition of biodiversity, and the functioning of its ecosystems. Considerable research has been undertaken on rangeland condition but it has not yet included the assessment of biodiversity (plants, animals and microbes) as a primary focus. Rangeland managers have struggled to assess biodiversity condition because it is rarely defined, is everywhere (so what do you assess?), is always changing in response to natural and human disturbances (so how do you know when it has changed?) and what amount signals management action. Here we present a framework that addresses these issues, and apply it to select surrogates and indicators that are scientifically defensible in biological and planning terms for assessing biodiversity. An arid Australian rangeland region is used as a case study to develop and apply our approach. We were not able to illustrate interpretation of condition because of the absence of long-term monitoring data in Australian rangelands, but we do provide guiding principles about sampling design and analytical methods for interpretation that use raw data rather than multimetrics. We discovered that different management outcomes expected to be informed from assessing biodiversity condition affected surrogate and indicator choice, and that a number indicators were not robust when assessed on conceptual relevance, measurement qualities, feasibility of implementation and policy and management relevance for four different management outcomes. Our work highlights the importance of stating the expected outcomes of biodiversity condition assessments up front, so that indicators relevant to future management are chosen. It also shows that critical thought on the robustness of indicators is warranted, especially as condition assessments under climate change will require information on the functional traits of species. We conclude by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of our framework in relation to environmental planning.

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Biodiversity monitoring in Australia's rangelands: Introduction

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Making the biodiversity monitoring system sustainable: Design issues for large‐scale monitoring systems

Making the biodiversity monitoring system sustainable: Design issues for large‐scale monitoring systems

Characteristics of Australia's rangelands and key design issues for monitoring biodiversity

A framework for assessing regional biodiversity condition under changing environments of the arid Australian rangelands

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