Enhancing Biodiversity Hotspots Along Western Queensland Stock ...

Conclusions
The Stock Route Network (SRN) of western Queensland is a wonderful legacy that
provides a substantial public benefit by protecting biodiversity on public land,
protecting and enhancing public resources used by a range of private and public
members, and fostering the sustainable use of this network.
This network also has an important future with a potential increase in stock
movement, more usage from tourism and recreation, and growing interest from
community groups. Therefore in order to conserve the natural values as well as
maintain its other benefits for the community, and given the vast geographic scale of
the network and compounding threats, management needs to be focussed on
biodiversity hotspots.
This project has highlighted the lack of knowledge there is about many of the
biological values across the SRN of western Queensland, but it has also highlighted
47 biodiversity hotspots where management actions will achieve the greatest
conservation benefits.
The process to identify these biodiversity hotspots met several challenges. Given the
time constraints, the project was forced to rely on data that had been collected on the
more frequented routes, and also prevented the inspection of all the isolated routes
that hold the exciting promise of more priority species yet to be discovered. Seasonal
conditions limited access to sites, and also greatly impacted on the presence and
abundance of species, especially birds. It would no doubt be possible to revisit sites
in the wet season and record priority species missed during the dry season in this
project.
The project found that the majority of stock routes in western Queensland can be
described under the three ‘Us’: ‘Unused for droving stock, Unfenced, and
Unrecognisable’. The condition of unfenced stock routes is as good as the
management of the station they adjoin. It is fair to say that in most cases the stock
routes were in good condition, especially considering other factors such as the recent
drought.
In the number of biodiversity hotspots identified, there was a distinct bias towards the
South West NRM region. This in no way reflects the abundance of biodiversity, but
simply the fact that the project coordinator (Bryan Walsh) was based in that region for
the duration of the project and spent weekends in the field visiting local sites.
However, it does add credence to the suggestion of follow-up projects being
conducted at the regional level. This approach would be far more thorough and
comprehensive, as local information flows more readily at the intra-regional level.
For all of the 47 biodiversity hotspots identified, this report has recommended
management actions to conserve the biodiversity values at each site. Of course none
of this can occur without a unified effort with the relevant local governments and staff.
This would include combined efforts to seek funding, thus enabling the
implementation of the recommendations on ground.
As the adjacent landholders are the de-facto managers of the stock routes, it is
important that they are not excluded from the ongoing management of these
biodiversity hotspots. The success of a combined approach to the management of
these hotspots will require their awareness of the values and management needs,
and their continued involvement.
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