Delivering for biodiversity
Queensland is widely considered a global biodiversity hotspot and is home to more than half of Australia’s native species. Some of these species are found nowhere else in the world. Yet more than 1000 of these plants and animals are listed as threatened with numbers growing year-on-year.
Without intervention, some of our most precious plants and animals are at risk.
Natural events such as cyclones, floods, droughts and fire contribute to the decline of our native plants and animals.
Other human-induced threats such as habitat clearing, pollution and introduced species also have a significant impact. We must halt the decline of our threatened species if we are to sustain our food security, keep waterways healthy, grow tourism, protect human health and give our landscapes the best chance at adapting to a rapidly changing climate.
Through the NRM Expansion Program Queensland Government has invested $20.52 million into 12 projects that will deliver outcomes for threatened species, habitats and ecosystems
How this outcome is measured
The regional NRM sector uses a range of tools which form part of our State-Wide Indicators Framework to monitor and report on our on-ground impact.
VegCAT will be used by projects working to improve the condition of threatened ecological communities that are native vegetation or where the outcome is focussed on the condition or extent of vegetated habitat.
If the habitat is specific to koalas, the newly developed KoalaCAT will provide a more nuanced assessment of improvements in habitat condition. KoalaCAT has VegCAT as its foundation, but introduces a koala-specific lens such as the recruitment of koala food trees.
NRMRQ is also working with regional NRM organisations to develop consistent ways of verifying a reduction in the impact of threats to target species. This will combining multiple lines of evidence from tools such as acoustic recordings, camera trap data, soil disturbance surveys and where appropriate eDNA sampling. This multiple-lines-of-evidence approach is likely to be used for verifying an improvement in breeding opportunities of threatened species such as turtles.
Projects
12 Projects
$20.52 million
Green Connections
Coordinated threat response to Threatened Ecological Communities across the Mackay Whitsunday Isaac region
Ensuring thriving Koala
Protection of the Gulf Snapping Turtle (Elseya lavarackorum)
Coral Reef Habitat Protection in the Torres Strait
Marine Turtle Guardians
Threatened Species Resilience
Improving Koala habitat and connectivity in the Mackay Whitsunday Isaac region
Nature Positive Fitzroy Farms
Urban Rewilding
Cattle Creek – a reach-scale approach to riverine management
Stewardship of the rangelands
This project is funded by the Queensland Government’s Natural Resource Management Expansion Program
