A strategic plan for an Australian Long‐Term Environmental Monitoring Network

Abstract

Because of the urgent need for robust, long‐term information on biodiversity loss and environmental change, we have proposed a Long‐Term (>10 years) Environmental Monitoring (LTEM) Network for Australia. The LTEM Network would comprise 25 Nodes distributed throughout Australia, be focused on terrestrial, inland aquatic and coastal estuarine ecosystems, and be established to monitor long‐term biodiversity loss and ecological change (patterns and trends). The LTEM Network would be question‐problem‐process‐driven and not infrastructure‐driven. Thus, the different Nodes in the LTEM Network would explicitly recognize different biota, different environmental problems, different environmental threats and different kinds of management interventions in different ecosystems. We provide a governance structure for the proposed LTEM Network and envisage that it would be characterized by being: (i) lean, yet powerful, agile and adaptive; (ii) both centralized (through a coordinating role by a Federal Government agency), yet decentralized in terms of where the Nodes are located and how they are operated and managed; and (iii) not overly bureaucratic. We also argue that it would be highly cost‐effective; our estimated cost for the establishment of an LTEM Network is $28 million per year or less than 0.25% of the total annual governmental expenditure of $12 billion on environmental management in 2003/2004. The LTEM Network would be a critical part of Australia's environmental infrastructure and provide the Nation, for the first time, with a formal, coordinated, long‐term Network to gauge status and change of biodiversity and environmental condition. We argue that this would allow the Nation to begin to address seriously many of the major data‐related deficiencies that currently exist in the environment and biodiversity conservation sectors in Australia.

Priorities in policy and management when existing biodiversity stressors interact with climate-change

“…Given the expectation that many species will change their distribution and the uncertainty about the consequences (Schneider and Root 1996), systematic investment in monitoring programs is needed (Likens and Lindenmayer 2011;Lindenmayer and Likens 2010;Lovett et al 2007;Nichols and Williams 2006). Monitoring will be most useful if it is able to detect range declines in species that are not compensated for by range expansion at a different range margin.…”

A survey of long‐term terrestrial ecology studies in Australia

“…There is considerable debate regarding intellectual property and who should have access to LTES data (Lindenmayer & Likens 2010;Likens & Lindenmayer 2011). The majority of respondents indicated that their data are available to scientific collaborators but few allowed data to be available to anyone per se.…”

Contemplating the future: Acting now on long‐term monitoring to answer 2050's questions

“…An appropriate balance would be a significant weighting towards problem‐focused monitoring, with limited effort directed towards surveillance monitoring. Over‐investment in surveillance monitoring at the expense of problem‐focused monitoring is unlikely to deliver progress on the most pressing environmental imperatives (Likens & Lindenmayer ). Recognize that continental reporting of the environment will often entail reporting on the environmental performance within particular, targeted ecosystems over time.…”