A performance audit into the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning’s (DELWP) protection of threatened species has found DELWP could not demonstrate whether or not it was halting the decline of threatened species populations.
In his Report Protecting Victoria’s Biodiversity, Auditor-General, Andrew Greaves said threatened species and their habitats were crucial to Victoria’s biodiversity, which provided the foundations of healthy ecosystems, such as clean air and water, productive soils, natural pest control, pollination and flood mitigation.
“DELWP cannot demonstrate if, or how well, it is halting further decline in Victoria’s threatened species populations,” Mr Greaves said.
He said DELWP aimed to choose cost-effective protection actions that benefitted the greatest number of threatened species.
“To this end, it uses modelling tools to support its decisions; these tools are better practice by design,” Mr Greaves said.
“However, much of the data used in the models is old and likely outdated, and has some critical gaps,” he said.
“This raises questions about the reliability of the modelled outputs and the decisions they support.”
Mr Greaves said DELWP’s cost-benefit approach could miss endangered threatened species at extreme risk of extinction and the Department had no transparent, risk-based process to prioritise these species for management.
The Auditor-General said DELWP made limited use of available legislative tools to protect threatened species.
He said the funding available to DELWP to protect species fell significantly short of what the Department predicted it needed.
“However, DELWP has not provided detailed, evidence-based advice to the Government about the cost and benefits of protecting and monitoring threatened species to support further investment,” he said.
“It also lacks performance indicators and reporting to demonstrate the impact of its management interventions on halting the decline of threatened species.”
Mr Greaves made nine recommendations to DELWP, all of which were accepted, aimed at improving impact monitoring and reporting of its prioritised management actions; the data and knowledge underpinning its decision-support tools; its use of the available legislative tools; and its advice to Government about funding needs and species prioritisation.
The Auditor-General’s 75-page Report can be accessed at this PS News link.
