The Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment (ATBA) was a program of the pioneering National Land and Water Resources Audit and was driven by two Queensland scientists, Paul Sattler and Colin Creighton.  The Audit ran from 1997 to 2008, but suffered an untimely end, chronicled in an article by David Marlow in volume 124 of the Proceedings of The Royal Society of Queensland.

The Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment 2002 combined the knowledge of State and Territory agencies on biodiversity and its management. It assessed the trend and condition of wetlands, riparian areas, threatened species, threatened ecosystems, birds, mammals and key values associated with eucalypts and acacias across Australia. The report identified threatening processes and conservation issues at a regional scale and made suggestions for improved biodiversity management.

The Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment 2002 has been captured (on 2 June 2011) by the National Library’s web archiving service in Trove: https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20110602044946/http://www.anra.gov.au/topics//vegetation/pubs/biodiversity/bio_assess_contents.html, published by National Land and Water Biodiversity Audit. ISBN: 0 0642 3713137 7. (Home page was www.nlwra.gov.gov.au.

The Australian Natural Resources Atlas (ANRA) was developed by the National Land and Water Resources Audit to provide online access to information to support natural resource management.

The data were presented in the Australian Natural Resources Atlas as a series of IBRA (Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia) maps of bioregions (80 plus) and their subregions (384). These displayed the condition and trend of a series of biodiversity values and threats and their relative importance by a pie diagram superimposed on each subregion. Continental maps of distribution of various aspects were also presented.

The Australian Natural Resources Atlas is not to be confused with the contemporary Atlas of Living Australia, a repository for observational data, and which is no substitute. ATBA drew implications for policy and management from the information gathered.
 

Paul Sattler OAM, member of The Royal Society of Queensland, has written for QSN:

The Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment was commissioned by the Natural Land and Water Resources Audit and published in 2002. It represented the final report into the condition of a range of natural resources nation-wide.

It was presented in the format of a Summary report and an extensive data base on the Australian Natural Resources Atlas. It was a separate assessment under the NLWRA commissioned by the Minister, Senator Robert Hill, well after the other natural resources were underway.

The total Audit’s worth was in excess of $52 million including all partnerships, a not insignificant investment at the time. It is considered that the biodiversity assessment enjoyed at least $2 million of in-kind support from the states and territories in addition to the $1 million in cash provided by the federal government. The enthusiasm for a nation-wide biodiversity assessment was noteworthy.

Unfortunately, the opportunity for continuation of a program to assess and monitor the on-going condition and trend of Australia’s natural resources was not supported.

The framework to carry out a nation-wide biodiversity assessment within a constrained 12 month timeframe was the newly completed biogeographical classification of Australia by Gethin Morgan and others. The delineation of bioregions with their component sub-regions provided a practical scale to assess the condition and trend of biodiversity and the relative significance of threatening processes. This assessment also included technical contributions by CSIRO and State researchers into evaluating various taxa as examples of how biodiversity values could be further considered. The assessment relied upon the extensive information held by state and territory governments, with much data based on observational records.

Fourteen case studies on how biodiversity planning might be approached at a regional scale were presented. These case studies were stratified across dissimilar bioregions and subregions. Overall, the Audit’s assessment provided a valuable input for natural resource management bodies and local governments to consider in regional planning.

The nation-wide information collected by the Audit’s biodiversity assessment was used extensively in the preparation of the statutory Australian State of Environment reports over two reporting periods.

The Executive Summary (page V) identifies the range of biodiversity elements assessed. In hindsight, the significance of climate change did not receive the attention that it now demands.

Its existence and now ready access presents an opportunity for longitudinal assessment of biodiversity condition and trend at the landscape scale and the relative significance of threatening processes.

The Audit’s Assessment report on terrestrial biodiversity is linked below.

Paul Sattler OAM Co-author

Pages Intro – end are accessible via the Trove website https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20110602154342/http://www.anra.gov.au/topics/vegetation/pubs/biodiversity/bio_assess_audit.html

In PDF format:

Pages 1-29
Pages 30-50
Pages 51-75
Pages 76-104
Pages 105-end.

The data sets are available as a zip file and can be extracted in the form of Microsoft Access database sheets. To come.

The modern ABARES data repository via https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-d27ddf97-b437-451d-8b52-3079d44fae6a/ records datasets on this subject, but the direct link to ATBA seems broken.

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