EFFECTIVE biodiversity monitoring, that allows an
evaluation of how well we manage Australia’s natural
heritage, remains a frustration to many who have
worked in conservation biology over the decades. Too
many times colleagues have audibly groaned when
presented with yet another new tool or pet interest,
with an appropriate price tag, that has been paraded
to senior management as a panacea to biodiversity
monitoring. The hotchpotch of vertebrate, one-off
botanical, one-off remote sensing, wetland, riparian
ecosystem, Threatened and Priority Ecological Community,
and species-focused monitoring programs
represents the collective failure to provide consistent
measure of the state of the Australian environment
within a common framework. We could audit the
effectiveness of many of these monitoring programs;
if we could find the data. If we can find the data,
too often it is difficult to understand what the
objective of the management intervention was.
Effective biodiversity monitoring programs are in the
minority and this must not continue.
Population Size Influences Amphibian Detection Probability: Implications for Biodiversity Monitoring Programs
