Surveys of microbat communities in several regions of Western Australia have revealed a diversity-productivity model of community structure in which co-occurring species occupy different foraging niches, but environmental factors influence turnover in species composition across landscapes. Detailed studies of species airframe morphologies, echolocation call designs, wingbeat frequencies and amplitudes, and flight muscle masses have revealed that bat sensory systems and aerodynamic packages (including fur and flight muscles) are fully integrated and functionally appropriate to empirical data on flight speeds, foraging strategies and microhabitats. We also report on progress towards the development of a general model for estimating species energy budgets and quantifying the deterministic relationships between their energetics, aerodynamics, geographical ranges and foraging niches.

A milestone in community participation in environmental management in New South Wales was the introduction of the Catchment Management Act 1989. To oversee the strategic planning and implementation of natural resource management, the Act provided for a network of committees across the State composed of agency staff, stakeholders and community representatives. In the selection process for this network, the focus of stakeholder and community participation has been on ensuring appropriate representation, rather than merit, and in rural areas the term ‘community’ has been synonymised with ‘land holder/land user’. This definition of community has frequently resulted in environmental management being placed in the hands of sectional interests. In this paper the potential problems of this approach are discussed and examples provided.

By signing the Rio Convention on environment and sustainable development, Australia has made a long-term commitment to the conservation of our unique flora and fauna. This includes the diverse, but often ignored small animals and plants living on and adjacent to our coasts. Many of these animals and plants have “broadcast” fertilization, dispersive larvae and very variable survival in the plankton. Patchy patterns of arrival of new animals into coastal habitats, along with varied interactions among species and between organisms and their surrounding environment, lead to characteristic patterns of coastal biodiversity. This biodiversity is patchy from place to place and variable from time to time in interactive and unpredictable ways. Conserving this biodiversity depends on throwing away old-fashioned, irrelevant ideas (such as the balance of nature) and recognising ecological realism. Community “monitoring” is becoming an important component of conservation in many parts of Australia. There has, however, been little serious thought about what data are collected in “monitoring” programmes, what they might mean or what they might be used for. Ecological data collected without clear hypotheses are generally pointless, or cannot be used for the purpose intended. Data required to measure biodiversity, or changes to biodiversity in such complex, variable systems as coastal habitats, cannot be collected and interpreted without considerable knowledge and expertise of sampling design, ecological theory and modern analytical methodologies. This means that they cannot usually be collected by amateurs or scientists not trained in and practising this type of ecology. It is sometimes suggested that ecological “indicators” be monitored as a means of simplifying the types of data collected, but it is seldom clear what it is that most indicators are supposed to indicate. Conservation of coastal habitats is not likely to progress by handing over measurement of their well-being or potential degradation to those ill-equipped to make such measurements. There are well-documented examples of the collection of useless data by non-trained observers, when the data being collected were much simpler than those needed to inform about coastal habitats. What is needed is a proper partnership between the community, who have a primary voice in what level of conservation is needed and what should form the priorities and the scientists, whose expertise and skills are needed to ensure that conservation is, indeed, occurring. These different roles are not interchangeable. Confusion between them will be to the continued detriment of our unique coastal habitats.

A clearly-articulated paradigm is described that guides much current research-based conservation effort. This paradigm, which uses a reductionist approach, provides a method for unambiguously identifying threats to biodiversity, such as causes of species' declines, and a method for distinguishing optimal management solutions. In contrast, it is argued that community-based conservation is not guided by any evident paradigm; actions can be grouped instead into different themes that have been labelled here as reactive, interactive, proactive and opportunistic. Because research can address only some conservation problems and community efforts usually are broad but diffuse, conservation of biodiversity would be best served if the two approaches were integrated. To achieve this objective, scientists must become more involved in activities at the community level, whereas community groups must ensure that their ‘on-ground’ actions are rigorous and defensible. Some examples of successful collaborations are provided in the paper.

The environment is the loser in the distribution of the massive funds of the Commonwealth government's Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) that are targeted at non-scientific groups that claim to know both our environmental problems and their solutions. The beneficiaries of the NHT are hundreds of separate community groups across the country, most of which have neither the research and investigation skills to undertake the work in a manner that can assess whether their efforts on local environmental issues have been successful, nor the infrastructure to extrapolate general conclusions from their findings and apply them to a wider geographical region. The tragedy is that what should be a partnership has become a source of conflict. The aim in this chapter is to be provocative so we can fruitfully suggest positive ways of tackling the major environmental issues facing us all. In order to make any satisfactory progress towards a more sustainable future, we need to acknowledge the clashes of paradigms that exist in society and among community conservation groups and research-based conservation endeavours, and attempt to resolve them. One of the tools that helps us see the world more clearly and offers testable solutions for a better future is a scientific research model. All members of the Australian community who aspire to see our native fauna and flora survive intact for future generations will recognise the need for a research component to that vision. Without research, we are merely stumbling around in ignorance rather than learning from our past endeavours and conquering the problems.

Formal networks such as the Marine and Coastal Community Network (MCCN), the Threatened Species Network (TSN) and the Community Biodiversity Network (CBN) present both models and avenues for building partnerships between community organizations and scientific organizations to achieve better conservation outcomes for marine biological systems. The paper briefly summarizes the work of the Marine and Coastal Community Network since its inception. It emphasizes the need to develop strategically targeted communication strategies based on market research to advance invertebrate conservation. It also highlights the importance of collaborative arrangements between scientists and community-based organizations to achieve meaningful on-ground outcomes for invertebrate conservation Australia-wide.

Despite being classified as one of the world's mega-diversity hotspots, the basic biology and ecology of most PNG forest vertebrate species are completely unknown, which hampers sound planning for conservation of PNG's forest fauna. Although almost 70% of PNG still retains its forest cover, PNG supports a surprisingly high proportion of threatened mammals and birds, which are comparable to the proportion of threatened species in Australia - 27% of PNG's mammals and 4% of PNG's birds are considered critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable compared with 22% and 5% respectively of Australia's mammals and birds. Degradation and loss of habitat by the partial or total removal of forest cover (from clear-fell logging, selective logging and clearing for shifting agriculture and oil palm plantations) is the most significant threat currently posed to PNG's forest fauna. Hunting may also pose a threat for some of the larger, highly sort after game species, such as tree kangaroos and cassowaries. An overview is provided of PNG's legislation for protected areas development and we outline our experiences in the facilitation of community planning for Wildlife Management Area establishment and management by local landowners in the Mt Bosavi area of Southern Highlands Province. For Wildlife Management Areas, the ownership of the land, the development of management rules and the enforcement of management rules remains in the hands of the customary landowner. The participatory community planning process that we developed to try to overcome some of the factors which have led to failure of WMAs elsewhere in PNG is outlined in this paper. In our opinion the only successful conservation areas in PNG will be those developed on land still held in customary ownership by landowners committed to conservation. We also believe that the planning process we developed can be used by local communities (with minor alterations) to undertake sustainable land and resource-use planning that can achieve broad scale conservation outcomes that do not necessarily result in the establishment of protected areas. While establishment of conservation areas by committed landowners may be part of the answer to achieving conservation of PNG's forest fauna, we also highlight research priorities which will aid the assessment of the effectiveness of conservation areas, and help to determine what other off-reserve measures may need to be taken to ensure effective conservation of PNG's fauna. We believe that the key to answering some of the fundamental biological and ecological questions necessary for the adequate conservation of PNG's fauna lies in building the capacity of PNG biologists and in securing adequate funds for them to undertake long-term research

We examine the nature and extent of listings of endangered ecological communities (EECs) under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 ( TSC Act ), including the role of endangered ecological communities in conservation from the landscape to species level. We ask how well the implementation of the TSC Act is working for ecological communities in relation to the key ecological issues of habitat loss and fragmentation, conservation of remnants, and conservation of ecological processes and disturbance regimes. To do this we use examples of endangered ecological communities from the Sydney Basin. Some 60 endangered ecological communities have been listed under the TSC Act since its inception and the rate of listing is likely to continue for some time yet. Most listings have been in coastal NSW, in particular in the Sydney Basin, with only a few in western NSW. This essentially reflects our current knowledge of vegetation associations in NSW and the fact that the majority of nominations have come from people who live in Sydney. In the Sydney Basin, for both the Duffys Forest EEC and the 12 EECs making up the Cumberland Plain, there has been extensive mapping of remnants and this has significantly increased both the awareness and acceptance of conservation issues relating to these communities. However, continued habitat loss and fragmentation of remnants is undermining their long-term viability. Any attempt to balance losses with reconstruction of ecological communities is not likely to contribute to their maintenance due to the time lags in reconstruction and importantly, our current lack of understanding of how to achieve restoration of complex ecological communities. Greater success is occurring in ameliorating threats to remnants of EECs, in particular weed control and minimising disturbance, especially through support from local councils and volunteer groups. However, both the number of remnants and their proximity to urban areas will influence the ability to ameliorate threats in remnants due to resource constraints. The recognition that persistence of these EECs is also dependent upon allowing appropriate disturbance regimes is occurring in relation to fire management, with implementation success based on the degree of understanding of how fire affects flora and fauna. This consideration will need to be extended to maintenance of species interactions, ecological processes and other disturbance regimes if viable endangered ecological communities are to be maintained. Based on this experience in the Sydney Basin, we would argue that the listing of threatened ecological communities in other parts of NSW is a useful conservation mechanism to raise awareness of conservation issues. Implementing recovery and the ongoing viability of such communities will be more dependent on developing an understanding of the processes that affect species persistence and interactions within communities and engaging support for conservation from local human communities.

Typically, reserve selection is based on representative community types classified primarily by vegetation. Whether they contain representative faunal communities has been little tested. The distribution and abundance of carabid beetles from 41 sites, representing a range of plant community types in two land systems in Tasmania, were used to classify sites by TWINSPAN. This study found that ground beetle distributions were not linked to plant community type. Communities defined by classification may predict only the presence of common and widespread species unless our understanding of carabid-habitat associations improves. Representation of all biota in reserves requires the inclusion of carabids in conservation assessments.

This scientist is grumpy with his scientific colleagues and the conservation agenda driven by green groups. Scientists are too conservative and lack the skills to communicate effectively with the community. Scientists need to assume moral responsibility for the application of their science and not allow multinationals and politicians dictate science policy or interfere with the communication of science. This requires fundamental changes in science education in Australia. The conservation agenda is anthropocentric with too much emphasis on conservation reserves for human recreation, and on wilderness, threatened species, and alien (exotic) species. The result is a fragmented reserve system that cannot conserve continental biodiversity in the long-term, and inadequate funding for less charismatic species or preventing common species from becoming threatened. A whole-of-landscape approach, such as WildCountry and Wild Lands, is needed; the conservation paradigm should be inverted with the entire continent seen as a nature reserve and human activities managed with nature conservation as a priority. However, nothing will be achieved without policies to limit and then reduce the human population and its consumption of resources. Humanity needs to share Earth with all other species regardless of those species economic benefits or costs.

In this paper we advocate community-based research, that is, the integration of community knowledge and support into research programs aimed at solving conservation problems. The rewards for researchers include obtaining an economical source of data, including historical information, access to private lands and a high impact of research results when the community supports and helps to implement the recommendations. For the community, the rewards are that its concerns are taken into account by researchers, that management actions are more likely to succeed, and the community will gain a better understanding of the findings of the ecological research. While this appears to be a mutually beneficial partnership, there is a conflict. Some researchers do not accept that community knowledge can contribute to scientific endeavour and will not consider incorporating community information into their programs. Thus, a major aspiration of involving the community in biodiversity conservation will not be fulfilled. By the same token, some communities are rejecting the inclusion of scientific research when dealing with conservation problems. The Natural Heritage Trust (NHT), for example, receives massive funding which is, in our opinion, being allocated by the community to the community without any obligation to involve research scientists. This matters because the NHT is by far the biggest pool of funding for a better environment for Australia in the 21st Century. The consequence is that the gap between research scientists and community groups working on biodiversity issues will widen to an unbridgeable gulf unless both parties acknowledge the clash of paradigms and work to overcome them, rather than entrench them.

The response of ground-dwelling jarrah forest invertebrates to logging (but not a post-harvest burning) was examined in the Kingston, Warrup and Winnejup forest blocks, approximately 25 km north-east of Manjimup in the south-west of Western Australia. Twenty sites, comprising eight Internal Controls, four External Controls and eight Impact sites, were sampled simultaneously before and after logging. These sites were sampled 18 times (8 pre- and 10 post-logging) over a period of 22 months (May 1994-March 1996). Logging occurred between March and April 1995. Approximately 500 000 invertebrates were collected from 35 Classes, sub Classes or Orders. The most dominant taxa were Collembola and Formicidae which accounted for 77.6% of the total abundance. Marked seasonal trends were present, with overall invertebrate activity (excluding Collembola) being highest during spring and lowest during winter. The main factors correlated with invertebrate activity were temperature and rainfall. Numerical dominance of taxa changed between seasons and between years. Significant spatial variability was also evident and appeared to be associated with changes in microclimatic conditions and small scale spatial variations in habitat. Timber harvesting had no significant impacts on total invertebrate abundance and richness. Only 5 of the 35 taxa studied, Blattodea, Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera and Orthoptera, were significantly affected, with Blattodea being the most severely affected. At the level of order, the impacts were only of short duration, with post logging communities resembling those of undisturbed sites after 10 months. Similarly, the impacts of logging on Araneae, Blattodea and Orthoptera assemblages were also only of a short duration. Logged sites followed the same seasonal patterns as control sites in the ordination plots, indicating that seasonal and inter-annual climatic changes appear to be more important determinants of community structure and function of the ground-dwelling invertebrate fauna than a logging event.

Invertebrates dominate both terrestrial and aquatic environments in terms of their diversity, yet few have been listed as threatened. Does this really mean that few species are threatened, or is it more likely that we just do not know enough about invertebrate populations? Realistically, given the slow acquisition of knowledge of invertebrates in Australia, it is argued that listing of invertebrates is suitable only for “iconic” species in order to raise community awareness. A more effective avenue is the conservation of habitats or communities for invertebrates as well as the implementation of legislation to identify and tackle key threatening processes. Until both the public and scientific community become aware of the importance of invertebrates in ecosystem functioning, there will be little pressure on conservation agencies to conserve invertebrates.

World Wide Fund for Nature asks the question, “Is science demonstrating leadership for conservation?” It is our view that science is not, and that is unfortunate since scientists, especially naturalists, were vital to the development of the very concept of conservation. We are concerned that the role of Australian scientists in conservation has dwindled to the point that the community is demanding answers and information and few scientists take the challenge of finding the solutions. In fact the community is now teaming up with government and finding answers, answers that aren't necessarily the most appropriate solutions. The Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales is well placed to show leadership for conservation and to encourage its members to ensure that their work is relevant to conservation and is not passed over or ignored in the decision making process.