The feasibility of implementing management for threatened birds in Australia

ABSTRACT

There are many impediments to conserving threatened birds. Some can be overcome through concerted action across multiple species while others require species-specific research and intensive management. We assess the feasibility of managing 202 threats identified in the Action Plan for Australian Birds across 217 Australian threatened bird taxa against five metrics – financial, technical, temporal, political and social. A higher percentage of all threats to all taxa was assessed as having low or very low financial (43%), technical (32%) or temporal (29%) feasibility than political (9%) or social feasibility (7%). The feasibility of managing the most difficult threat to a taxon was low or very low for 52% of the threats identified. Within Australia, the main impediments to addressing most threats are technical and financial, indicating that research and funding should be domestic conservation priorities. Addressing threats linked to habitat destruction/degradation, climate change, invasive species and pollution is limited by the long timescales required to alleviate them, emphasising the urgency of commencing action. Outside Australia, social and political constraints are the main impediments to Australian conservation managers influencing action on habitat loss, species over-exploitation and climate change, but there are also technical, financial and temporal impediments to reducing threats from pollution, invasive species and climate change. Advocacy is therefore also important for addressing threats facing birds outside Australia. Our study provides a platform upon which to build more explicit and efficient management of threatened birds, prioritise efforts in research, funding and advocacy and contribute to reducing losses from Australia’s avifauna.

POLICY HIGHLIGHTS

• Feasibility analysis can identify the principal constraints on taxon recovery and help shape funding threat-based or species-specific priorities.

• In Australia, financial and technical deficits are the principal constraints on threat mitigation, emphasising the need for funding and research.

• Outside Australia, social and political issues are the major problem, requiring diplomacy to effect change.

• Many threats also face temporal constraints, highlighting the need for sustained funding.

KEYWORDS:

• Conservation prioritisation
• ornithology
• threatened species
• conservation decision-making

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the many contributors to the Action Plans for Australian Birds whose insights Form the basis for this research. Without them, feasibility scores for many taxa would be far lower.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The overall threats database relevant to all papers in the Action Plan for Australian Birds 2020 special issue is available by contacting the lead editor of the plan (STG). Data and R-code used for analysis in this manuscript are available in the online Supplementary Material.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2023.2295355.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Bird Environment Fund, BirdLife Australia, Charles Darwin University, Biosis Pty Ltd, New South Wales Local Land Services via the National Landcare Program 2 and Auchmeddan.