Leaders: Drs John Woinarski and Alaric Fisher, NT Dept. Natural
Resources, Environment and the Arts, Darwin
Dr Alex Kutt, Queensland Environmental Protection Agency,
Townsville
Full title: Savanna Biodiversity—building and sharing
knowledge for biodiversity conservation and sustainable land
management in the tropical savannas
Project 2.4.2
Summary | Objectives | Outcomes |
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This project forms the major way for the
substantial portfolio of research projects undertaken by the CRC
and its core partners on biodiversity over the last decade.
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We explicitly aim to first canvass the
information needs and presentation preferences of our stakeholders;
we place our major new resourcing into a communications officer to
tailor the delivery of this product and to undertake (with our
research personnel) the task of translating research results to
informed management conclusions. Our adoption strategy also aims to
be sufficiently flexible that we can add research and communication
modules likely to be rated as priorities by stakeholder groups, and
likely to attract additional external funding.
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The project will develop a 'one-stop shop' that collates all
available information on biodiversity in the tropical savannas of
northern Australia, and how these savannas can best be managed to
maintain biodiversity values.
The project will deliver this information in easily accessible
forms, including a Savanna Biodiversity Website, a Biodiversity
Management Manual and a range of pamphlets, guides and information
sheets.
The information is targeted to a range of savanna land users,
including management agencies, regional Natural Resource Management
(NRM) groups and individual land managers.
Representatives of these groups were interviewed to determine
the most appropriate products and projects that will assist the
application of biodiversity information to land management, in
order to result in positive biodiversity outcomes.
The project identified currently available information sources
and proposed information products, along with impediments to the
sharing and application of biodiversity information.
The project aims to make existing information more accessible,
to facilitate projects aimed at improving application of
biodiversity information, and develop new products and projects to
fill identified needs not currently being met.
A new Tropical Savannas website focused on land management will
act as a portal to both existing information sources and a storage
area for new products produced by the project.
The project also aims to build additional knowledge of
biodiversity across the tropical savannas through support for
carefully targeted research—including basic biodiversity
inventory, improved understanding of the impacts of management
regimes on biodiversity, modelling economic and ecological
implications of land management, and enhanced capacity to monitor
biodiversity.
In the research component, the core CRC funds are primarily
directed toward maintaining biodiversity research capacity in the
Northern Territory and Queensland through employing key staff, with
basic operational support.
- Collate all available information about biodiversity, and the
relationship between land management and biodiversity, for the
tropical savannas.
- Develop and maintain a database for biodiversity information
that can be interrogated at a variety of scales and levels of
complexity.
- Synthesise biodiversity and land management information to
produce diverse communication material appropriate to the variety
of savanna stakeholders.
- Contribute to a the TS-CRC web portal in order to provide ready
access to biodiversity information for the variety of savanna
stakeholders.
- Undertake targeted research to address major gaps in knowledge
of biodiversity, and the relationship between land management and
biodiversity, in selected savanna regions.
The project will contribute to improved management of the
tropical savannas through:
- Greatly improving ease of access to information about
biodiversity and sustainable land management for a diversity of
land managers. Information products produced by the project will be
designed to address the needs of government agencies, regional NRM
groups and individual land managers;
- Generally improving the quality and geographic spread of
information relevant to biodiversity and sustainable land
management;
- Collecting and disseminating new information about biodiversity
in very poorly known regions in the savanna;
- Investigating and clarifying the effects of various land
management regimes on biodiversity, where there is currently
insufficient data for good management planning;
- Providing information, methodologies and guidelines that will
assist land managers, regional groups and agencies in monitoring
the biodiversity health of country;
- Generally raising the profile of biodiversity as an important
issue that must be adequately considered in regional and land
management decision;
- Developing an improved understanding of the requirements of
stakeholders for biodiversity information, and the formats in which
it may be most effectively communicated.
