Threatened Species Network to leave the Centre

Threatened Species Network to leave the Centre

The Threatened Species Network has pulled-out of the arid zone from June 30th, 2008. This will mean the loss of the Arid Rangelands Coordinator position ending a 15 year legacy in central Australia.

The Arid Lands Environment Centre is disappointed that the Commonwealth Government and WWF Australia (World Wide Fund For Nature) have chosen not to retain funding for TSN in the arid zone.

The TSN Arid Rangelands Coordinator has been based in Alice Springs since 1993, and is hosted by the Arid Lands Environment Centre. The role of the TSN Coordinator has been to encourage community involvement in the recovery of threatened species in the arid zone.

Significant achievements of TSN in the Arid Rangelands during this time include:

· Supporting the involvement of pastoralists and indigenous communities in threatened species recovery and land management activity;

· Raising the profile of threatened species in the arid zone at various public awareness raising events coinciding with National Threatened Species Day in September;

· Supporting ALEC to draft the Great Desert Skink Recovery Plan in 2001;

· Hosting combined Arid Zone Recovery Team forums in 2008, 2004, 2002, and 2001; and,

· Delivering funding to local organizations for threatened species projects through the TSN Community Grants Program (18 projects funded in the arid zone since 1999).

Jimmy Cocking, ALEC Coordinator, is concerned that these activities will be diminished in future. “The arid zone is unique in that it overlaps a number of States and Natural Resource Management Region (NRM) jurisdictions, “Jimmy said.

“The strength of the Arid Rangelands Coordinator role was that it could work across those state and regional boundaries more in line with the spread of arid zone threatened species and the threatening processes that they face”, he said.

As a result TSN in the arid rangelands was able to facilitate more cross-border cooperation between state government staff, wildlife researchers and land management organisations by hosting combined Arid Zone Recovery team meetings for threatened species such as the greater bilby, the great desert skink, mulgara and ampurta, the black-footed rock wallaby, the marsupial mole, and other desert species.

The arid zone is a challenging environment to work in and the federal government should not be cutting services to the region that are available elsewhere.