We've maintained or improved the health of about 80% of our conservation targets.
Protecting our targets
‘Targets’ are values on our reserves and partners’ land that we wish to protect. They're ecological (vegetation communities, species and landscape features), social (access to Country, wellbeing) or cultural (sites, stories, species) and help us to focus our land management.
We measure our targets’ health over time to ensure our actions are helping them improve and deliver a positive impact.
Since we began the management of our reserve network, we've maintained or improved around 80% of our targets.
Some of our targets have declined in condition. The 'Analyse & Adapt' phase of our Conservation Management Process tells us this is largely due to increased extreme weather events.
Key:
Baseline – The rating of the target after first assessment
Current – The rating of the target after recent assessment
Managing threats
‘Threats’ are things that negatively impact the health of our reserves’ targets. We work to manage, reduce or eliminate threats such as feral animals, weeds, erosion, inappropriate fire regimes, climate change and biodiversity loss.
Our threats are rated using the criteria of scope, severity and reversibility. In our 'Threat assessment', we report the 'baseline' rating of a threat from when we purchased the reserve and compare it against the threat's 'current' rating.
There are new and emerging threats, which we've recently identified and may not have a baseline rate, we classify these threats as 'Not available' (N/A).
On average, since we began management of our reserve network, we've reduced or stabilised around 85% of our threats. With the impacts of climate change already being observed on our reserves, and the expansion of new weeds and invasive plants, the stabilisation of threats through our on-ground work is sometimes measured as reasonable steps towards our goals.
With only 15% of threats worsening across our reserve network, we recognise that not all threats are under our control. We'll never stop working hard to manage these and protect our targets.
Key:
Baseline – The rating of the threat after first assessment
Current – The rating of the threat after recent assessment