To protect and restore Australia’s ecosystems, we need ambitious action at all stages of the invasion curve.
We catalyse strong, collaborative biosecurity to protect and restore what makes Australia extraordinary – our unique wildlife and ecosystems.
An Australia where wildlife and ecosystems are safe from invasive species. By 2050, invasive species are no longer the major driver of biodiversity loss and ecosystem
degradation in Australia.
Australia, being an island, has functioned like an impenetrable fortress, immune to the incursion of invasive species for millennia.
However since the modern era, hundreds of invasive species have been brought here, and unfortunately many have escaped from captivity — or were intentionally released — and have since driven one of the worst extinction crises anywhere on Earth. Today, invasive species are the leading driver of Australia’s extinction crisis.
This is why we are building a stronger, collaborative biosecurity system that reduces the threat of invasive species to nature in Australia following our pillars below:
ANALYSIS:
Investigating, evaluating and working with experts
ALLIANCES:
Building trusted partnerships and cross-sector collaborations
ADVOCACY:
Fearlessly advocating using evidence-based arguments and compelling communications
ACTION:
Stepping in when others can’t or won’t
By 2030, Australia has a much stronger environmental biosecurity system, enabling more effective:
Prevention:
The establishment of new invasive species in Australia has substantially slowed, and no new very-high-risk species have permanently established.
Eradications:
Priority invasive species are being systematically eliminated from the Australian mainland and islands.
Containment and control:
Invasive species have not caused any more extinctions, high priority invasive species are benign, effectively contained or controlled, and priority biodiversity sites are being protected..
Our remit is broad and includes all categories of invasive species – plants, animals, fungi, microbes – across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. Although our primary focus is Australia and its territories, when opportunities arise, we support international efforts that benefit Australia, our region and the world.
Our strategic plan sets out five priority areas for the organisation’s prevention and early action work which forms the majority of our efforts. It also explains the approach to our work seeking to eradicate, contain and control invasive species that have already arrived and established in Australia.
If you’d like to learn more about what we do take a look at our strategy for dealing with invasive species in Australia.
The Invasive Species Council was formed in 2002 to seek stronger laws, policies and programs to protect nature from harmful pests, weeds and diseases.
The Invasive Species Council acknowledges the Traditional Custodians throughout Australia and their connections to land and sea. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
Dear Project Team,
[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.]
I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.
The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.
The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.
This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.
Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.
Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.
Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.
I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.
Dear Project Team,
[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.]
I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.
The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.
The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.
This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.
Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.
Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.
Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.
I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.
