Theme 6.00

Using social and economic opportunities for threatened species recovery

The social environment is critical to the way threats impinge on species and ecological communities.

There can be little effective public investment in threatened species management without an aware and engaged community.

By understanding the economic and policy processes that underlie threatened species management, and enhancing social engagement, on-ground activity will improve.

This theme will focus on:

  • Using social and economic opportunities for threatened species recovery, including the role of citizen science and methods for better community buy-in
  • Quantifying the benefits of threatened-species management in rural and regional economies
  • Learning from practical on-ground priorities and management approaches of local Indigenous communities
  • Learning the reasons for success and failure in the past.
Related Projects

The economics of threatened species management

Project: 6.1
Saving threatened species from extinction costs money. Costs play a big part in decision-making around conservation actions, yet using economic theory in developing decision frameworks for conservation has not been done before.

Indigenous action in threatened species research and management

Project: 6.2
This project aims to support on-country enterprise and partnership opportunities for Indigenous people to participate in protecting and recovering Australia's threatened species and their habitats.

Plants and animals we care about on the Tiwi Islands

Project: 6.2.2
This research project will explore how Indigenous aspirations for conservation management are incorporated into collaborations with western conservation scientists.

The conservation ecology of the Alligator Rivers yellow chat

Project: 6.2.3
The Alligator Rivers yellow chat is a small, bright yellow insectivorous subspecies of bird living on the floodplains of several major rivers in the ‘Top End’ of the Northern Territory including within and nearby Kakadu National Park. Despite its listing as Endangered, little research has been conducted on the bird and its habitat requirements and major threats are not well understood.

Improving communication and community buy-in to threatened species conservation

Project: 6.3
This project will explore and test ways of increasing community buy-in to threatened species conservation in Australia. Using tools such as online surveys, focus groups and workshops, it will build an understanding of how communication and messaging affects social attitudes towards the conservation of Australia’s threatened species.

Iconic Species in Schools

Project: 6.3.4
The Iconic Species in Schools project will investigate and quantify the environmental and cultural benefits of reconnecting children with Australia’s unique biodiversity and cultural heritage. The project will use activities including habitat provision, active learning and play to deliver conservation messages to children and expose them to Indigenous culture and heritage.

Targeting Australia’s highest biodiversity impact behaviours

Project: 6.3.5
Most biodiversity loss is caused by human behaviour, so changing harmful behaviours is critical for protecting biodiversity. In Australia, getting individuals to change to behaviours that can directly benefit threatened species is thwarted by a poor understanding within the research, governance and general communities of what individuals can do that will make a difference.

Prioritising conservation efforts and communicating conservation opportunities in urban areas

Project: 6.3.6
More than 370 EPBC-listed threatened species can be found in Australian cities and towns. Yet we understand little about how to promote the management and recovery of threatened species in urban areas.

Learning from success and failure in threatened species conservation

Project: 6.4
The project examines the reasons behind success and failure in the management of threatened species and communities. It will identify the factors that are common to successful recovery projects.

Citizen science for threatened species conservation and building community support

Project: 6.5
Citizen science is surging in Australia, and represents a huge opportunity to engage the public with threatened species, to capture valuable data and to deliver crowd-sourced on-ground conservation action. This project will deliver protocols to guide the application of citizen science to threatened species monitoring and management.