Monitoring and Conserving Biodiversity in Australia

Abstract

Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities. Legge, S., D. B. Lindenmayer, N. M. Robinson, B. C. Scheele, D. M. Southwell, and B. A. Wintle, editors. 2018. CSIRO Publishing, Clayton South Victoria 3169, Australia. 451 pp. AUS$81.54 (paperback). ISBN 978‐1‐4863‐0771‐5. Australian Island Arks: Conservation, Management and Opportunities. Moro, D., D. Ball, and S. Bryant, editors. 2018. CSIRO Publishing, Clayton South Victoria 3169, Australia. 264 pp. AUS$65.52 (paperback). ISBN 978‐1‐4863‐066‐2. Recovering Australian Threatened Species: A Book of Hope. Garnett, S., P. Latch, D. Lindenmeyer, and J. Woinarski, editors. 2018. CSIRO Publishing, Clayton South Victoria 3169, Australia. 342 pp. AUS$59.95 (paperback). ISBN 978‐1‐4863‐0741‐8. Australia has particularly daunting conservation challenges because it has both an insular biota and a vast land and sea area that is difficult to monitor and manage effectively. The 3 books that are the subject of this review were all published by CSIRO this year. Two, Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities and Recovering Australian Threatened Species: A Book of Hope arose from workshops (possibly the same workshop) in 2016, and several authors contributed to all 3 volumes. These 3 books collectively contain a vast amount of information on biodiversity conservation in Australia, including up‐to‐date summaries of the conservation status of specific taxa and sites that will be useful to conservation scientists, managers, and policy makers. All 3 books are attractive and well designed, particularly Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities and Recovering Australian Threatened Species: A Book of Hope, which has color headings and photographs. Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities is the most technical of the 3 books and will consequently be of interest primarily to scientists and managers. The chapters in this book are organized into sections on particular topics, including the extent and adequacy of biodiversity monitoring in Australia, program design, community participation, adaptive management, and a final section appropriately titled “Bringing it All Together.” All sections have a useful summary chapter that collates the key points made in the relevant chapters. I found this a useful and well‐organized book. The first section, on the quality and extent of threatened species monitoring in Australia, has separate chapters on mammals, birds, frogs, reptiles, and fish, which makes it easy for readers to find information on the taxon they are interested in. The same approach was used to analyze and present the data in each chapter, which makes it easy to compare the methods and results of monitoring among different taxa. Compiling and analyzing so much information on such a wide range of threatened species was no mean feat, and the authors and editors did an excellent job. The key finding of this section, that only a small proportion of threatened species have adequate monitoring programs, sets the scene for the rest of the book, which is about improving monitoring outcomes. I found the section “Monitoring Program Design” particularly useful, with chapters on using tools such as the project prioritization protocol and the expected value of perfect information to help determine what to monitor, and on the use of power analysis to estimate optimal monitoring intervals. In summary, this is a well‐conceived and organized book that both effectively summarizes current problems in biodiversity monitoring in Australia and provides constructive solutions to them. Australian Island Arks: Conservation, Management and Opportunities is also packed with useful information, but I found it less well organized. Although chapters are grouped into themes, most of these contain just a single chapter and are therefore rather redundant. Furthermore, in most cases, multiple chapters within the same theme are not contiguous. For example, the theme of “Community‐Driven Conservation and Engagement” is composed of Chapters 4, 9, and 12. There is a huge amount of information in this book but, because of its poor organization, much of it is hard to find without reading each chapter in detail. Even then, because the information is not organized geographically, the reader never knows what to expect. I often f -Abstract Truncated-