A submission to the Australian government draft feral cat threat abatement plan that seeks improved nationally coordinated action and funding to reduce the environmental impact from feral cats. Submitted July 2015.
A joint response by the Invasive Species Council and the Australian Marine Conservation Society to a government issues paper.
A submission by the Invasive Species Council to the Senate inquiry into the Biosecurity Bill 2014 and endorsed by 27 other environmental groups.
A submission consisting of 15 case studies that form an attachment to the primary submission to the Senate inquiry into preventing new invasive species.
A submission to the review of the import risk analysis process by the Department of Agriculture conducted between July and September 2014. The submission argues that a systematic risk-based approach be used to determine priorities for future import risk analyses and that the process could be improved through greater independence, better use of environmental expertise and the precautionary principle and an extended appeals process.
This submission to the Senate inquiry into the arrival and establishment of new invasive species impacting on the Australian environment shows that Australia has suffered major losses due to invasive species. It provides data and case studies that indicate ongoing, serious, and systemic flaws in environmental biosecurity and makes recommendations to strengthen environmental biosecurity to prevent the flow of new invasive species that have deadly consequences for the Australian environment.
The submission recommends that a threat abatement plan be prepared for the national Key Threatening Process of escaped garden plants, since the current policies have failed to systematically close pathways for weed establishment and spread and the threat from escaped garden plants remains serious.
The strategy is an important initiative that fills a significant gap for research on invasive species impacting on the environment and the community in Australia. Changes are suggested to clarify a prevention focus, to specify roles to implement the strategy and to support establishment of a national coordination committee to oversee the strategy’s implementation.
In this submission we provide background information that explains the scale of the impact by invasive species on threatened species and ecological communities and we suggest recommended changes to the terms of reference for the Threatened Species Commissioner.
A submission arguing that there needs to be a more business-like approach to invasive species threats – identification of long-term goals and targets, costed plans, a closing of major gaps in legislation and policy and proper involvement of the community sector.
A paper prepared for the Biosecurity Advisory Council (reports to the federal minister for agriculture). This paper outlines the benefits and costs of community engagement in decision-making and policy-setting in environmental biosecurity, assesses the current state of engagement at the national level and makes recommendations for improvement.
As a replacement for the century-old Quarantine Act 1908, the Biosecurity Bill 2012 represents a rare opportunity to bolster Australia’s capacity to protect the environment
May 2012
How can Australia stem the rising tide of environmental pests? By harnessing the energy and commitment of volunteers around the country under a new national organisation, Environment Health Australia.
May 2009
A paper by WWF-Australia that outlines the strategic approach, design factors and policy objectives and instruments needed to construct a strong and effective national regulatory framework for weeds.
July 2007
This report by WWF-Australia examines the threat posed by poisonous garden plants and makes five recommendations for low-cost solutions.
A submission to the Australian government draft feral cat threat abatement plan that seeks improved nationally coordinated action and funding to reduce the environmental impact from feral cats. Submitted July 2015.
A joint response by the Invasive Species Council and the Australian Marine Conservation Society to a government issues paper.
A submission by the Invasive Species Council to the Senate inquiry into the Biosecurity Bill 2014 and endorsed by 27 other environmental groups.
A submission consisting of 15 case studies that form an attachment to the primary submission to the Senate inquiry into preventing new invasive species.
A submission to the review of the import risk analysis process by the Department of Agriculture conducted between July and September 2014. The submission argues that a systematic risk-based approach be used to determine priorities for future import risk analyses and that the process could be improved through greater independence, better use of environmental expertise and the precautionary principle and an extended appeals process.
This submission to the Senate inquiry into the arrival and establishment of new invasive species impacting on the Australian environment shows that Australia has suffered major losses due to invasive species. It provides data and case studies that indicate ongoing, serious, and systemic flaws in environmental biosecurity and makes recommendations to strengthen environmental biosecurity to prevent the flow of new invasive species that have deadly consequences for the Australian environment.
The submission recommends that a threat abatement plan be prepared for the national Key Threatening Process of escaped garden plants, since the current policies have failed to systematically close pathways for weed establishment and spread and the threat from escaped garden plants remains serious.
The strategy is an important initiative that fills a significant gap for research on invasive species impacting on the environment and the community in Australia. Changes are suggested to clarify a prevention focus, to specify roles to implement the strategy and to support establishment of a national coordination committee to oversee the strategy’s implementation.
In this submission we provide background information that explains the scale of the impact by invasive species on threatened species and ecological communities and we suggest recommended changes to the terms of reference for the Threatened Species Commissioner.
A submission arguing that there needs to be a more business-like approach to invasive species threats – identification of long-term goals and targets, costed plans, a closing of major gaps in legislation and policy and proper involvement of the community sector.
A paper prepared for the Biosecurity Advisory Council (reports to the federal minister for agriculture). This paper outlines the benefits and costs of community engagement in decision-making and policy-setting in environmental biosecurity, assesses the current state of engagement at the national level and makes recommendations for improvement.
As a replacement for the century-old Quarantine Act 1908, the Biosecurity Bill 2012 represents a rare opportunity to bolster Australia’s capacity to protect the environment
May 2012
How can Australia stem the rising tide of environmental pests? By harnessing the energy and commitment of volunteers around the country under a new national organisation, Environment Health Australia.
May 2009
A paper by WWF-Australia that outlines the strategic approach, design factors and policy objectives and instruments needed to construct a strong and effective national regulatory framework for weeds.
July 2007
This report by WWF-Australia examines the threat posed by poisonous garden plants and makes five recommendations for low-cost solutions.
A submission to the Australian government draft feral cat threat abatement plan that seeks improved nationally coordinated action and funding to reduce the environmental impact from feral cats. Submitted July 2015.
A joint response by the Invasive Species Council and the Australian Marine Conservation Society to a government issues paper.
A submission by the Invasive Species Council to the Senate inquiry into the Biosecurity Bill 2014 and endorsed by 27 other environmental groups.
A submission consisting of 15 case studies that form an attachment to the primary submission to the Senate inquiry into preventing new invasive species.
A submission to the review of the import risk analysis process by the Department of Agriculture conducted between July and September 2014. The submission argues that a systematic risk-based approach be used to determine priorities for future import risk analyses and that the process could be improved through greater independence, better use of environmental expertise and the precautionary principle and an extended appeals process.
This submission to the Senate inquiry into the arrival and establishment of new invasive species impacting on the Australian environment shows that Australia has suffered major losses due to invasive species. It provides data and case studies that indicate ongoing, serious, and systemic flaws in environmental biosecurity and makes recommendations to strengthen environmental biosecurity to prevent the flow of new invasive species that have deadly consequences for the Australian environment.
The submission recommends that a threat abatement plan be prepared for the national Key Threatening Process of escaped garden plants, since the current policies have failed to systematically close pathways for weed establishment and spread and the threat from escaped garden plants remains serious.
The strategy is an important initiative that fills a significant gap for research on invasive species impacting on the environment and the community in Australia. Changes are suggested to clarify a prevention focus, to specify roles to implement the strategy and to support establishment of a national coordination committee to oversee the strategy’s implementation.
In this submission we provide background information that explains the scale of the impact by invasive species on threatened species and ecological communities and we suggest recommended changes to the terms of reference for the Threatened Species Commissioner.
A submission arguing that there needs to be a more business-like approach to invasive species threats – identification of long-term goals and targets, costed plans, a closing of major gaps in legislation and policy and proper involvement of the community sector.
A paper prepared for the Biosecurity Advisory Council (reports to the federal minister for agriculture). This paper outlines the benefits and costs of community engagement in decision-making and policy-setting in environmental biosecurity, assesses the current state of engagement at the national level and makes recommendations for improvement.
As a replacement for the century-old Quarantine Act 1908, the Biosecurity Bill 2012 represents a rare opportunity to bolster Australia’s capacity to protect the environment
May 2012
How can Australia stem the rising tide of environmental pests? By harnessing the energy and commitment of volunteers around the country under a new national organisation, Environment Health Australia.
May 2009
A paper by WWF-Australia that outlines the strategic approach, design factors and policy objectives and instruments needed to construct a strong and effective national regulatory framework for weeds.
July 2007
This report by WWF-Australia examines the threat posed by poisonous garden plants and makes five recommendations for low-cost solutions.
Get our blog the Feral Herald delivered to your inbox.
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.
