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Help fund our fight to protect the nature of Australia

Our work is and always will be about stopping the invasion and spread of hostile weeds, pest animals and diseases that threaten our natural environment. It’s our core business.

You can see it in the critical role we played during the bushfire crisis, leading calls for recovery efforts to focus on protecting our wildlife from feral cats, foxes and hard-hooved herbivores such as goats, pigs and feral deer.

You can also see it in our work re-activating Australia’s fight to eradicate red imported fire ants before this terribly destructive environmental invader spread out of control.

We have shown that we are a powerful voice for nature, but we need to be stronger.

Can you make a tax deductible donation now to help fund our fight to protect the nature of Australia from invasive species?

What’s next?

We have just started work on an exciting new project that will have far-reaching consequences for the protection of Australia’s threatened species.

Australia is one of the few countries in the world with a system to reduce the main threats to nature – in particular invasive species, climate change, habitat destruction, changed fire regimes and hydrological regimes. But this system is failing.

Already we have lost 90 unique plants and animals to extinction. Of the birds, mammals, frogs and lizards now gone forever, three quarters fell victim to the spread of invasive species.

What would it take to overcome the major threats to nature in this country? We want to find out through our new project Threats to Nature.

We will work with experts to devise an approach that reduces and manages the threats to save more of our plants and animals from extinction. Through Threats to Nature we will once again step into the breach, leading the way when governments fail.

Can you help by making a tax deductible donation today?

Fighting for nature

Despite our size, we are a powerful voice for conservation in Australia. We were founded about this time 18 years ago by far sighted individuals sick of seeing wave after wave of weeds, feral animals and other pests destroying the natural places they loved.

Tim Low wrote a whole book about it – Feral Future – and inspired action to address a major gap in the effort of conservation organisations. That action resulted in us, the Invasive Species Council.

We know we still have a long way to go. Even today, scientists continue to recognise invasive species as the major ongoing threat to our native plants and animals, if not nature’s greatest threat.

The financial support of people like you has fuelled our fight for the nature of Australia for almost two decades now.

Please, give generously now so that we can protect Australia from the growth of feral animals, weeds and environmental diseases, and continue to be one of nature’s strongest advocates.

Andrew Cox, CEO

PS: Please donate online now and help us be a force to be reckoned with and help halt invasive pests and diseases.

Related Content

Australia’s Worst Invasive Species: Myrtle Rust
Averting extinctions: The case for strengthening Australia’s threat abatement system
Feral Deer Control: A Strategy for Tasmania

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Save the Snowies

Join thousands of Australians who are standing up for Kosciuszko National Park!

The NSW government is one step away from allowing aerial control of feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park. This is huge news and a crucial step for our threatened native wildlife and the fragile alpine ecosystems they call home.

Take action now

Hear from us when it matters

Your support to protect critically endangered and vulnerable species from extinction is vital. Together, we can ensure governments prioritise action on invasive species and protect our wildlife and iconic places.

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.

Our Work

About Us

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.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]


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.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]