With the Australian government and environmental experts promoting the idea of nature repair and regeneration becoming aspirational, biodiversity assessments become imperative.
If we are to support native species and encourage healthier ecosystems, we need to determine trends, status, and distribution of fauna and flora to establish effective strategies to conserve and protect them.
Biodiversity assessments provide a range of benefits including:
- Economic value, where industries such as agriculture and forestry and the community in general rely on biodiversity for the supply of raw materials.
- Ecological life support, to determine how ecosystems run adequately to provide clean air, water, oxygen, pollinators, plants, wastewater treatment and insect control.
- Healthy recreation, to establish that areas can attract tourism such as camping, birdwatching, hiking and fishing among others that count on biodiversity.
- Cultural conservation, to provide benchmarks and measures of how cultures, particularly Indigenous ones, are connected with animals and plants to express identity and spirituality.
- Scientific values, where scientists establish benchmarks for applications such as medical and industrial processes.
A summary of biodiversity assessments in Australia follows. While many biodiversity parameters are voluntary and critics argue that we are not doing enough to help, there are various benchmarks that recommend interventions.
The Commonwealth legislation established in 1999 is called the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. It addresses environmental assessments and approvals, preserves levels of biodiversity and combines assessments of relevant natural and cultural areas. This Act is complemented by State and Territory legislations that focus on threatened species and their habitats.
NSW developed legislation called the Biodiversity Conservation Act in 2016. It aims to ‘maintain the quality of ecosystems and improve their capacity to adapt and provide for the needs of future generations’. It also supports the collection and sharing of data, and monitors and reports on the status of biodiversity and the effectiveness of conservation measures, among other things. (Source: Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016).
Victoria initiated the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act in 1988. This Act aims to create systems to protect Victoria’s native plants and animals. It also provides different methods for conserving, managing, or controlling wildlife and dealing with threats to their survival.
Queensland’s Nature Conservation Act (1992) aims to protect nature while involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in managing protected areas that are important to their culture and traditions.
South Australia’s National Parks and Wildlife Act (1972) states that its goal is to protect native wildlife by ensuring vulnerable plants and animals are prioritised.
Western Australia introduced the Biodiversity Conservation Act in 2016. It aims to support and protectsthreatened species and threatened ecological communities.
Tasmania introduced the Nature Conservation Act in 2002. It aims conserve and protect the fauna, flora and geological diversity of the State, and to provide for the declaration of national parks and other reserved land.
The Australian Capital Territory Nature Conservation Act of 2014 states that it aims to ensure the protection, conservation, improvement and management of nature in the ACT and the management of reserves.
Biodiversity methodologies
Two prominent methodologies are the Biodiversity Assessment Method (BAM) and the Biodiversity Assessment Instrument (BAI). The Biodiversity Assessment Method came into force in 2020 and its purpose is to support and minimize damage to the environment, a consistent method for assessing biodiversity values and impacts from a proposed development (including major projects). The Biodiversity Assessment Instrument (BAI) offers a standardized approach for evaluating projects under the voluntary Nature Repair Market and for describing biodiversity outcomes. It promotes transparency and uniformity across projects, allowing investors to easily compare different activities and results, even when varying methodologies are used.
Assessing biodiversity at PlantingSeeds’ sites
PlantingSeeds aims to support biodiversity in urban corridors through focusing on native plants and pollinators. Through its B&B Highway program, we plant, create habitats, conduct citizen science and urban heat measurements and at schools, encourage students to become ‘bug assessors’ through exploring their playgrounds and spaces.
We also establish biodiversity assessments prior to planting and one year on, to compare abundance and range of plants and pollinators.
PlantingSeeds created a methodology for floral and pollinator assessments, derived and inspired from a review of the literature examining floral visitation methodologies with inputs from doctorate entomologists. The evaluation focuses on:
- Times of year: At least two assessment periods per year are recommended.
- Times of day: Optimum times are between 9am and 11am and between 1pm and 3pm.
- Weather conditions: Sunny or cloudy days (no precipitation) with no- or low-wind conditions are preferential for assessments.
- Amount of time dedicated to each assessment: Different studies refer to between 10 and 20 minutes per assessment.
- The number of times each site is assessed at each visit: It is recommended that each site visit is sampled at least two times.
- Areas measured: Borders, other sections, number of areas, percentage of site measured, vertical and horizontal amounts in beds
- Boundaries of collection
- Flower identification
PlantingSeeds decided to implement biodiversity assessments as the organisation saw that urban biodiversity data and insights are lacking in Australia. Much research into plants and animals focuses on agricultural and regional ecosystems and does not prioritise the important role that urban areas have in regeneration and supporting biodiversity. The State of the Environment Report (Australia) states that almost half of all significant fauna lives in urban areas and about one-quarter of significant flora.
By developing the evaluation protocols, we have established evidence-based parameters to allow us to see the changes that take place in schools and other areas once we plant endemic native plants. We aim to move the dial from ‘threatened to thriving’ for key Australian plants and pollinators. And this can’t be established and validated without proper data.
The importance of engaging schools and local communities in biodiversity assessments
We plant for threatened and native pollinators in schools to support urban regeneration and the education of students of all ages in environmental education. Much of what we do is to impart a respect for science and evidence – citizen science, for example, is a key part of what we teach. And the biodiversity assessments we conduct reflect the value we place in establishing facts. We ask what flora and fauna exists and existed in the schools prior to our sessions. And importantly, the follow-up assessments determine how plantings help.
Article by Kimberly Perez Neuta
Sources:
https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2016-063#sec.1.3
https://www.accessep.com.au/blog/what-is-biodiversity-assessment
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2665972725001035
https://pollution.sustainability-directory.com/term/biodiversity-assessment/