Biodiversity on grazing lands
Leader: Alaric Fisher, Parks & Wildlife Commission NT,
Darwin
Full title: Refining methods for off-reserve conservation of
biodiversity in tropical savanna rangelands
Project 2.1.2
Summary | Rangelands and regions | Objectives | Approach and
methods | Documenting biodiversity values
| Characterising the response of biota |
Communication materials and activities
| Working with land managers |
Management scenarios | Integration of biodiversity conservation |
Links | Outputs |
Project team |
This project addresses the question of how biodiversity values
can be maintained in land where the primary use is not
conservation, particularly the large area of tropical savanna
currently used for grazing stock.
Maintaining biodiversity in most ecosystems within the tropical
savannas depends upon the ecologically sustainable management of
lands outside the formal conservation reserve system.
While there is widespread recognition of this imperative among
many land managers and Natural Resource Management agencies, there
is still a poor understanding of how to manage to maintain
biodiversity values within grazing systems (and in the context of
other land uses).
Correcting this becomes increasingly important as pastoral use
is intensified and grazing pressure is applied evenly and
universally across the landscape.
Recent research by CSIRO & PWCNT suggests that leaving a
regional network of lightly- or non-grazed land is an appropriate
conservation management approach in at least some rangelands.
However, many issues relating to the detail of applying this
approach remain unresolved. For example, what total area of land
(in a regional context) should be retained as lightly grazed? Would
lowering stocking rates or rotational grazing have similar
conservation benefits to setting land aside from grazing? How is
non-grazed lands to be managed? What components of biodiversity
cannot be adequately protected by this approach? Neither is the
above approach necessarily applicable to all rangelands type,
particularly where there is abundant natural water; where landscape
heterogeneity is high; or where there are no remnants of land
subject to low stocking pressure.
This project aims to develop frameworks and guidelines for the
conservation of biodiversity on grazed lands in a variety of
rangeland types.
The project will encompass a number of regions characterised by
different ecosystems and enterprise types, and build on current or
proposed ecological research in these regions. Conservation
management actions need to be applied both at a property level and,
in a coordinated fashion, at a regional scale. Development of
regional frameworks or guidelines that guarantee biodiversity
conservation will be an essential part of the development of
environmental accreditation schemes for the northern beef industry.
The project seeks to identify where the thresholds for ecologically
sound performance should be set at both enterprise and regional
levels
While some of the project objectives will be met by modelling
using existing data, additional sampling of biodiversity in a
number of regions and rangeland types will be required. The
participation of landowners and managers will be essential, and the
project will expand on the links currently being developed with
companies such as Heytesbury Beef and North Australia Pastoral and
in regions such as the Desert Uplands, Burdekin catchment, Cape
York Peninsula, Sturt Plateau and Roper catchment and Ord-Bonaparte
region.
The project directly addresses the CRC’s key objective of
providing scientifically sound principles for the sustainable
management of the tropical savannas and will assess the costs and
benefits of a range of management options in a variety of regions
in northern Australia. The project directly addresses the Key
Result Areas of management strategies for grazing, and
environmental management systems and codes of practice; and will
feed into predictive models of landscape function and impacts of
interventions; policy and management options for multiple land use;
and land administration and management options for multiple land
use.
More specifically it will:
- Investigate the response of a range of biota to different
levels of land use intensity in a number of rangeland types in the
northern savannas;
- Identify species or groups of species that are most susceptible
to decline under current land management regimes, and if possible
identify management thresholds for the retention of susceptible
species;
- Describe the implications for biodiversity of a range of land
management strategies, particularly intensification of pastoral
use;
- Develop land-management scenarios at property and regional
scales that will maximise the retention (or recovery) of
biodiversity under a range of management regimes in a number of
rangeland types;
- Incorporate analyses of economic cost/benefit into
consideration of conservation management scenarios;
- Establish additional monitoring schemes to evaluate their
effectiveness, where there has been uptake of off-reserve
conservation management scenarios,
- Provide protocols for proper accounting for biodiversity values
within the context of Environmental Management Systems for grazed
lands
This project will focus on a number of regions across the
tropical savannas that encompass a range of ecosystems, tenures,
levels of pastoral development, and levels of ecological integrity.
These are also regions where the TS or TSM CRC have or will
undertake management studies, and/or where relevant ecological
research has been or will be undertaken, and/or where there has
been opportunity to constructively engage with individual
landholders or land management groups. This currently includes the
Barkly Tableland (NT), Sturt Plateau (NT), Roper catchment (NT),
Victoria River District (NT), Dalrymple Shire/Burdekin catchment
(QLD), Desert Uplands (QLD) and Cape York Peninsula (QLD). The
potential for work in other regions of northwestern Queensland and
the Kimberley (WA) will be investigated in 02/03
There are six components to the project:
This will involve collating data from previous studies (eg.
Sturt Plateau, Desert Uplands); collecting additional data in
selected regions (eg. Roper catchment); and presenting information
in appropriate forms to land managers. A major function of these
component is to engage land managers in the process and describing
and valuing biodiversity values;
This will involve the collation of existing data, analysis of
information gaps and then targeted field studies. These may involve
sampling along biosphere gradients; cross-fence comparisons;
sampling recently destocked areas; and paddock-scale and property-
scale comparisons of areas assessed to be in different
‘condition’. Biota sampled will include vascular
plants, vertebrates and selected invertebrate taxa (ants, termites,
carabid beetles, grasshoppers, spiders). Field studies will be
strategically selected to maximise their value as
“demonstration” studies that can illustrate the
implications for biodiversity values of different land management
regimes;
The major aim of this component is to provide easily-accessible
material that engages pastoral managers, agency staff and other
stakeholders and promotes implementation of off-reserve
conservation management. Material will include information sheets
and, by the end of the project, a DPIF-style book describing
biodiversity conservation on pastoral land. Activities include
presentations to land management groups, government agencies and
participation in education and extension courses
PWCNT is currently working with land managers in a number of
regions (VRD, Roper, Sturt, Barkly) to implement off-reserve
conservation management arrangements. This project will pursue that
implementation and assess their effectiveness by periodic
resampling at permanent monitoring points. Where possible, the
management arrangements will be structured to address issues raised
in the objectives above. In 2002/03, the project will aim to
develop similar arrangements in at least two selected regions in
northern Queensland, as well as monitoring the implementation of
conservation management agreements in Cape York Peninsula
Drawing on data from (i) - (iii) above and projects in Theme 1,
a range of management scenarios will be developed that maximise the
probability of biodiversity retention (or recovery) in each region,
ecosystem and enterprise type. Two important features of this
component will be:
- parameterising responses of biota to land use for use in
landscape function models (Project 1.1.1), in order to model
biodiversity costs and benefits of alternative conservation
management scenarios
- developing economic models to examine the relative economic
costs & benefits of alternative conservation management
scenarios
Conservation management scenarios and economic cost-benefit
analyses will be developed in close consultation with land managers
in the respective regions. Where land managers proceed to an
implementation stage, monitoring sites will be established and data
will feed back into component (ii) above.
This component will be developed in the latter stages of the
project in collaboration with the Project 2.2.1, Beef Industry
Best Practice. In particular, this component will examine
how conservation management actions can be coordinated at a
regional scale, and attempt to determine enterprise- and
regional-level thresholds for ecologically sustainable
performance.
The project directly involves staff from three conservation
management agencies (NT PWCNT, QPWS & QEPA) as well as CSIRO
Sustainable Ecosystems. Strong links have also been developed with
staff in other NRM agencies in the tropical savannas as well as
some landholders and producer groups, and these links will be
strengthened as the project progresses.
This project is designed to address issues relating to Best
Practice management and properly accounting for biodiversity within
an Environmental Management System, and therefore has strong links
to other TS-CRC Projects in Theme 2 (2.1.2, 2.1.4, 2.2.1). The
project will use data derived in Theme 1 projects (1.1.4, 1.2.2,
2.2.3) and provide data and management scenarios inputs to Project
1.1.1.
In conjunction with NT DBIRD and CSIRO SE, PWCNT has applied for
funding from Meat & Livestock Australia to support one
component of this project, that investigates the biodiversity
implications of intensification of pastoral management in the
Victoria River District. This aspect of the project has also
received strong support from Heytesbury Beef.
- Frameworks for most effectively integrating biodiversity
conservation into management of grazed lands in the tropical
savannas;
- Advice to land managers on cost-effective methods for
biodiversity conservation across a variety of land types;
- Development of appropriate monitoring systems to measure
effectiveness of conservation management;
- Integration of biodiversity conservation into best management
practice at an enterprise scale;
- Incorporation of biodiversity conservation issues into
environmental management systems at a regional scale.
Alaric Fisher, DIPE (PWCNT)
Jenni Risler, DIPE (PWCNT)
Damian Milne, DIPE (PWCNT)
Alex Kutt, QPWS
QPWS Rangers, QPWS
Murray Whitehead, QEPA
Gethin Morgan, QEPA
Sharon King, QEPA
Mal Lorimer, QEPA
Peter Latch, QPWS
Stephen Garnett, QPWS
Alan Andersen, CSIRO SE
Tony Hertog, CSIRO SE
Lyn Lowe, CSIRO SE
