Guidance

What are they?

Threatened species are native plants and animals that might become extinct if we don't protect or help them. Ecological communities are a group of native plants and animals that are interacting in a unique habitat shaped by environmental factors like soil, landscape features, altitude, climate and water availability. Like threatened species, threatened ecoloigcal communities might become extinct if we don't protect them.

The main threats in Australia include:

• Unhealthy Country or lost habitat caused by:
  • wrong-way fire
  • weeds
  • livestock and feral herbivores like Goats, Pigs, Rabbits
  • farms, mines, houses and logging
• Predation by introduced predators like Feral Cats and Foxes
• Climate change and extreme weather events like drought and flooding

How are they protected?

In Australia, threatened species and ecological communities are protected under National, State and Territory laws. These laws put threatened species into different categories, based on how much danger they are in:

• Extinct
• Extinct in the Wild
• Critically Endangered
• Endangered
• Vulnerable
• Conservation Dependent

More than 1400 plants, 600 animals and 100 ecological communities are listed as threatened in Australia under the national Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. They can also be listed under State or Territory laws. 

Monitoring activties that involve threatened species and ecological communities usually need special approvals from National, State or Territory authorities. 

What do you need to do when monitoring?

Threatened species can be difficult to monitor because we don't know enough about them, there aren't many of them left or they are cryptic and difficult to find. This means that many threatened species need species-specific approaches to monitoring, rather than a monitoring activtity that targets more than one species. 

Anytime you do monitoring that might disturb or interfere with Threatened animals and plants, you need to check with the State/Territory authorities to see if you need any approvals, such as scientific licences and animal ethics permits. 

Follow the links below to check both the National and the State/Territory lists for the species you are monitoring:

• National Species Profiles and Threats database
• Australian Capital Territory
• New South Wales
• Northern Territory animals and plants
• Queensland
• South Australia NatureMaps search or legislative list
• Tasmania
• Victoria
• Western Australia

More information

Primary sources

This guidance document was developed using the following sources:

• Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (2021). Threatened Species under the EPBC Act. 
• NESP Threatened Species Recovery Hub (2021). Theme 3.0: Monitoring and Management. 

Tools and resources

• Look up and learn more about threatened species and ecoloigcal communities in the Species Profiles and Threats database 
• Download a map of threatened ecoloigcal communities
• Learn more about monitoring threatened species: Legge, S., Lindenmayer, D.B., Robinson, N.M., Schelle, B.C., Southwell, D.M., Wintle, B.A. (2018). Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities. CSIRO Publishing: Clayton South, Victoria.