In Darwin from 17th to 19th of November, Bob Pressey, Stephanie Trotter, Jorge Álvarez-Romero and Jeremy Vanderwal led a workshop on threatened species in northern Australia. The workshop was funded by the Northern Australia NESP (National Environmental Science Program) Hub, with the main aim of designing a multi-year project to develop new data and more accurately identify conservation priorities for threatened species of terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. The workshop was attended by staff of Commonwealth, state, and territory agencies, representatives of Natural Resource Management organisations, non-government organisations, and universities. The study region has been defined as the tropical savannas and the wet tropics rainforests, making up most of the area north of the Tropic of Capricorn. The project will involve new modelling of species distributions, new assessments of exposure and vulnerability to threatening processes, and new spatial analyses of the relative importance of parts of the North for threatened biodiversity. We expect the results will be used for protected-area planning, off-reserve management, appraisals of development applications, and environmental impact assessments.
The Burrowing Bettong used to be common animals in the dry parts of Australia but now they have mostly disappeared. Photo: Arid Recovery.
