Search the SPREP Catalogue

16 result(s) found.

Sort by

Publication Year
Sort results by
Created
Sort results by
Updated
Sort results by

You searched for

Tags / Keywords australia
X

clear

Advancing recycling technologies to address Australia's plastic waste

Waste Management and Pollution Control

Available Online

2021

Australia intends to significant improve waste recovery for plastics. One mechanism to achieve that is through increased recycling, including the use of advanced recycling technologies.

Invasive Insects: Risks and Pathways Project

BRB

Available Online

McGeoch, M. A.

2020

Australia cant afford to allow in any more insect colonists like red imported fire ants, electric ants, browsing ants, yellow crazy ants, Argentine ants, African big-headed ants, Asian honeybees, large earth bumblebees and German wasps. These invaders are costing both the Australian environment and economy dearly. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on Australia-wide eradications of red fire ants, electric ants and browsing ants because of their potential for devastating harm to wildlife and impacts on people. The others have spread too far to remove, so are here in perpetuity as a threat to biodiversity, human amenity and the economy, and a burden for future generations to manage. Given the difficulties and costliness of eradicating or controlling invasive insects, one over-riding priority for Australian biosecurity must be to prevent more harmful species arriving and establishing. To do this, biosecurity authorities need to know which insects overseas (an estimated 46 million species) represent the greatest invasive risks for our country and how they are likely to arrive here. Biosecurity authorities already know which insects are the prevention priorities for agriculture, but there is no such list covering insects that could harm the Australian environment.

Methods for monitoring invertebrate response to vertebrate eradication

Biodiversity Conservation, BRB

Available Online

Houghton, M.

Shaw, J.

Terauds, A.

2019

Once an island vertebrate eradication is deemed successful, it is typically assumed that ecosystem recovery will follow. To date, most post-eradication monitoring focuses on the recovery of key threatened or charismatic species, such as seabirds. Little attention has been given to monitoring and quantifying the response of invertebrate communities. Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus), house mice (Mus musculus), and ship rats (Rattus rattus) impacted sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island for over 140 years, with wide ranging ecosystem impacts. In 2014, the eradication of rabbits and rodents was o?cially declared successful. To determine whether management objectives are being met, we are investigating the response of invertebrate communities to pest eradication, using both historic data and contemporary surveys to track changes over space and time. To achieve this, we have developed a survey strategy that is e?ective and e?cient. Here we report on the merits of utilising a variety of invertebrate trapping methodologies to establish current baselines for future invertebrate monitoring. We identify sampling techniques that are most e?ective for speci?c groups of taxa, particularly those of interest to post-eradication monitoring, and how the implementation of such methods can improve and facilitate e?ective post-eradication monitoring of invertebrates.

Costs and benefits of rodent eradication on Lord Howe Island Australia

Biodiversity Conservation, BRB

Available Online

Bennett, Jeff

Gillespie, Robert

2017

Invasive species compete with endemic species and if successful can displace native species in the host region (Cororaton et al., 2009).

Zero-tolerance biosecurity protects high-conservation-value island nature reserve.

BRB

Available Online

Scott,John K. McKirdy, Simon J. van der Merwe, Johann Green, Roy Burbidge, Andrew A. Pickles, Greg Hardie,Darryl C. Morris, Keith Kendrick, Peter G. Thomas, Melissa L. Horton, Kristin L. OConner, Simon Downs, Justin Stoklosa, Richard Lagdon, Russell Marks, Barbara Naim, Malcolm Mengersen, Kerrie

2017

Barrow Island, north-west coast of Australia, is one of the worlds significant conservation areas, harboring marsupials that have become extinct or threatened on mainland Australia as well as a rich diversity of plants and animals, some endemic. Access to construct a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant, Australias largest infrastructure development, on the island was conditional on no non-indigenous species (NIS) becoming established. We developed a comprehensive biosecurity system to protect the islands biodiversity. From 2009 to 2015 more than 0.5 million passengers and 12.2 million tonnes of freight were transported to the island under the biosecurity system, requiring 1.5 million hrs of inspections. No establishments of NIS were detected. We made four observations that will assist development of biosecurity systems. Firstly, the frequency of detections of organisms corresponded best to a mixture log-normal distribution including the high number of zero inspections and extreme values involving rare incursions. Secondly, comprehensive knowledge of the islands biota allowed estimation of false positive detections (62% native species). Thirdly, detections at the border did not predict incursions on the island. Fourthly, the workforce detected more than half post-border incursions (59%). Similar approaches can and should be implemented for all areas of significant conservation value.