Policy Snapshot July 2016

When a native species or ecological community is listed as threatened under Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, a conservation advice is developed to assist its recovery. New conservation advices were recently approved for 60 species. Conservation advices provide information on key threats, priority local and regional conservation actions, and threat abatement actions for listed species or ecological communities.

The Essential Environmental Measures for Australia programme is an important part of current efforts to transform Australia’s State of the Environment reporting through digital delivery. Digital delivery will make the report more widely available and searchable, enable user access to the underlying data, and enable more frequent updates of both analysis and its underlying data. The aim of the programme is to improve the discovery, access and reuse of data and information about essential environmental measures. The programme will contribute to a stronger information base to understand our environment, how it is changing and how human activities are affecting it.

The Australian Government has commissioned the 2016 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap to support future investment decisions in research infrastructure. This will ensure Australian researchers can access world class major national research infrastructure. A new Expert Working Group will help set the future direction of national research infrastructure and will develop a National Research Infrastructure Roadmap.

The Sensitive Ecological Data Access and Management Policy forms part of the Australian Government’s approach to making data more accessible, discoverable and re-useable. The policy provides a consistent, accountable and transparent approach to classifying and managing sensitive ecological data. It also provides a process for identifying and managing sensitive ecological data to avoid negative impacts on species or ecological communities.
 

Mr Patrick Suckling has recently been appointed as Australia's Ambassador for the Environment. This position promotes Australia’s interests on international environmental issues including climate change policy, world heritage, whaling, illegal wildlife trafficking, blue economy and oceans.
                                                                                                                                                                                                              
Fifty-four Queensland scientists and researchers have received more the $10 million through the Inaugural Advance QueenslandResearch Fellows and PhD Scholars initiative. Their projects will help drive innovation and collaboration in new and existing industries and solidify the state’s capability and reputation as a global science and research leader.

ANU Press has just published Learning from Agri-environment Schemes in Australia which focuses on the major investments madeby governments in payments to farmers for the protection and restoration of biodiversity on agricultural land. The book asks: After more than two decades of these schemes in Australia, what have we learnt? Are we getting the most from these investments, and how should we do things differently in the future? It is available in hard copy and as a free download.