"Rapidly heading towards extinction" The Department of Parks and Wildlife's Biodiversity Audit II of WA was intended to follow and update Audit I, a comprehensive final public report on which had been published in 2002. It took three years - from 2012-2015 - to complete, with about 120 experts contributing information to evaluate all 628 threatened flora and fauna species, 69 threatened ecological communities, 12 internationally significant and 140 nationally significant wetlands. It also evaluated the lower tier "priority" species and ecological communities regarded as near threatened or poorly known. Two separate sources showed WAtoday results taken from an internal summary presentation done on the findings on flora and threatened ecological communities.

They showed five flora species were extinct in the wild, though still officially listed as "critically endangered" or "vulnerable", and three ecological communities were "totally destroyed" though still officially considered "threatened" and published as such to the public. A further five threatened species had less than five plants remaining in the wild and 20 per cent (86) had less than 250 plants remaining. The fate of 41 species was unknown as staff had not collected data in a decade. About 35 per cent of species classified 'priority' needed reassessing, with about 400 needing higher categorisation and 285 lower. Only about three per cent of threatened plants had improved through conservation activities.

All threatened ecological communities had remained static or declined; almost two-thirds worsening, 11 static, and 10 not monitored. Nine were considered degraded by worse than 95 per cent. The colourful snakebush is one of the species on the critically endangered list that sources tell WAtoday is extinct, though DPaW disagrees. WAtoday understands there is a backlog of 45 or more communities that need upgrading to TEC status. The details also show DPaW's lack of resources to monitor and assess threatened species, with numerous species and TECs not surveyed over the decade. Southwest WA is one of Australia's 15 national biodiversity 'hotspots' and one of only two biodiversity hotspots in Australia recognised by Conservation International.

Audit II: publicly available... to some? WAtoday's source said the audit was completed using spreadsheets that formed a database, but that the original intention had been to publish documents to aid public and government interpretation of that information, including a state synopsis, a summary of findings on a bioregional scale and recommendations for government, all of which was to be made available for use by developers and other stakeholders. But a final report was never produced as for Audit I. He said during this time executive culture at DPaW was changing, focusing less on science and conservation and in favour of nature-based tourism. The emphasis was on operational activities at the expense of "integrated holistic conservation programs" and conservation, and scientific evaluation, was targeted for budget and staff cuts. DPaW declined to comment on these observations.

The audit team dissolved after the audit's 2015 completion, with several members made redundant before even an internal rundown on the fauna and wetland results could be given. But the results on fauna had been similar to the findings for flora and TECs, WAtoday's source said. Labor asked about the audit report in parliament for two years was "stonewalled", the source said. "It was just kind of frozen in time," he said. "This all fell perfectly in line with a Liberal government that didn't want to know about the state of WA's environment. WA relies on its biodiversity as a major tourism drawcard.

"They have protected the government by not letting out this information. The ministers didn't have a clue. "There has been angst across middle management; they have felt really frustrated over the last eight years over the lack of transparency and accountability. It is so frustrating to see these media releases only at an activity level - about how they released whatever species in whatever location. It doesn't mean anything without this benchmarking, or knowledge of how the long term state or condition is improving or otherwise." He said the department was neglecting its responsibility to the government and that land use planning decisions and environmental impact and clearing assessments were now being based on some seriously outdated listing information. "I cannot stress enough the importance of Audit II in setting the direction of conservation and informing sound decisionmaking in this state," he said. DPaW says it is not hiding the results, because members of the public can make an appointment to view the audit database and because the findings on some species are available in various public scientific papers.

It has not been able to name which information is publicly available or where exactly that is, however; when a Labor MP pursued this in 2015 a DPaW official said it was "impossible" to tell. "Some care needs to be taken in how the information from Biodiversity Audit II is presented and interpreted," a DPaW spokeswoman told WAtoday. Florabase says Baileyâs Symonanthus is extant. The Audit says it's extinct. DPaW says... it's complicated. She said though the species were extinct in the wild two were maintained in soil-stored seed, one was in the live collection at Kings Park, two had been translocated to 'secure sites' to establish new wild populations and one was 'rare' in WA but still occurred in Victoria and New South Wales. DPaW has never publicly announced an Audit II was done or that members of the public could view database information by appointment.

In 2015, DPaW Science and Conservation director Margaret Byrne told another curious Labor MP it was available in database form "to staff only" and she needed to make a decision with the director general on whether it would be made public. She described the Audit as "just a snapshot update", a description the departmental spokeswoman echoed to WAtoday. WAtoday's source said Audit II was no "snapshot", but "the biggest technical assessment of biodiversity ever undertaken by DPaW" and that the now 15-year-old Audit I, which had used a different assessment framework and far fewer experts, was not a substitute. In addition, Audit II had examined in detail future management and research needs, including climate change refugia - areas that could support a single surviving population of a species. "Finding individual pieces of information on individual species buried in separate documents is ridiculous. It is an appalling excuse, and contemptuous," he said. "The point is the patterns for over 650 threatened species. The audit brought together all the listings and looked at it from a bioregional scale." Credit:Andrew Brown

He disputed DPaW officials' advice to Labor MPs in 2015 that Audit II had cost $570,000, saying this disregarded staff and travel costs. He said it cost at closer to $1 million. "It's not just day-to-day staff. These were experts renowned nationally and internationally, at the top of their field," he said. He said it was "nonsense" to suggest that some parts of the results were available in some public documents such as recovery plans when about 30 per cent of threatened species did not have recovery plans and most of those that did were years out of date, with some "three to five year" plans more than 15 years old. Wetlands, with the exception of the 12 internationally recognised (Ramsar) wetlands, did not generally have any management plans and even those that did lacked "meaningful targets" and were out of date, in some cases by 20 years. A department in trouble?

DPaW manages more than 29 million hectares, or around 11.6 per cent of WA's land, comprising mostly conservation reserves and State forests. WAtoday's source said conservation reserve management was the foundation and principal strategy behind biodiversity conservation, but there was no comprehensive assessment framework in place to determine overall management effectiveness or value for money. Nor did DPaW publicly and periodically report, via Parliament or the Conservation and Parks Commission, on the state and condition of the State's biodiversity or the state of the conservation reserve systems, with the exception of the Forest Management Plan. "Nobody knows if they are doing a good, bad or indifferent job," he said. In New South Wales and and Victoria, audits criticising these states' inability to demonstrate value for money and management effectiveness resulted in the adoption of regular auditing and reporting.

Tasmania had also adopted such an approach. He said WA's style and culture was, by contrast, unaccountable, lacking in corporate leadership and out of step with the rest of the world's more mature approach to conservation - even some countries considered third world had more advanced evaluation and accountability systems. "Expertise has been lost at this agency with severe cuts and targeting of nature conservation programs," he said. "Highly skilled professionals have been targeted, forced out without regard for succession planning or the importance of the agency's functions." Credit: Oberon Carter

The Attorney General in 2009 audited the management of the threatened species lists by the department, then known as the Department of Environment and Conservation before the previous Liberal government split it into DPaW and the Department of Environmental Regulation. The report, Rich and Rare, found there was no way to assess whether outcomes were being achieved because of a lack of monitoring and evaluation. It found the department could not demonstrate the overall effectiveness of its threatened species conservation activities, limiting assurance that it had effective management and conservation processes and programs to ensure the protection and recovery of WA's threatened species." Eight years later, a progress report from the AG is being prepared, an update WAtoday's expert expected would be "damning" based on his discussions with current staff members. A DPaW spokeswoman said the Department's programs and procedures to minimise the risk of species loss included dieback management, weed control, protection of sensitive sites from grazing pressures, rabbit control, collection and storage of seed as an insurance measure, and establishment of new populations or enhancement of existing populations through translocation of threatened species.

She said these were supported by research, and recovery plans implemented by stakeholder recovery teams. The nomination and assessment process for threatened species and TECs was adopted by a national working group implementing a nationally accepted assessment method. The species on the 'threatened' lists in WA were prioritised for recovery action. Ecological communities and species 'priority' lists were primarily for communities or species that were "data deficient or poorly known". Lists were "continually reviewed" and communities or species could not be considered for listing as threatened until they had been adequately surveyed.

An update on this report is expected to be released soon. She said 450 species had been removed from the priority lists since 2009, with 36 species upgraded to threatened. "Similarly, the status of threatened species is continually being reassessed and changed. This was one of the functions of the Biodiversity Audit," she said. "Recovery plans also continue to be a key element of threatened species and communities recovery, with 72 per cent of those species and communities ranked as critically endangered or endangered covered by a recovery plan. "Recovery plans are prepared using the best available information and they remain in operation until they are replaced or the species recovered. Revisions of plans are prepared where new information is available that changes the recovery requirements of the species or community.

"Of the 245 species of flora with recovery plans, 114 have been reviewed and 18 plans subsequently revised." She said the threatened ecological communities list had not been not been updated since 2002 as there was no legislative mechanism to do so but the new Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 had allowed such mechanisms to be developed. Despite this, environmental impact and clearing assessments under the Environmental Protection Act, as well as planning policies, still use these lists. The spokeswoman said DPaW was not the only government department subjected to efficiency dividends and voluntary severances in recent years. The future

The department – once CALM, then the DEC, then DPaW and DER – now faces yet another shake-up. As part of sweeping public sector reforms in a bid to cut costs and increase efficiencies the government plans to combine DPaW, the Botanical Gardens and Parks Authority, the Zoological Parks Authority and the Rottnest Island Authority into one. This will be called the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions, reinforcing the idea of DPaW as a tourism-facing agency. New Environment Minister Stephen Dawson indicated DPaW told him the same thing it told WAtoday; that "much of" Audit II's details were available and that people could make arrangements to view the database. He has now asked for a briefing on its findings. He said the former government made significant funding cuts across the public sector in recent years, including at DPaW, but the new government's Service Priority Review would "drive lasting reform across government" and "deliver real outcomes".

Unlike most Australian jurisdictions, WA currently has no 'state of the environment' reporting in place to gauge conditions and trends in environmental values, including biodiversity, and overall performance in addressing issues. The last State of the Environment report is now a decade old. Loading The Environmental Defender's Office of WA, a volunteer lawyers' network, wrote in its submission on the state Perth and Peel Green Growth Plan last year that DPaW's "repeated refusal" to release Audit II and the lack of readily available, up-to-date information on the status of threatened species and ecological communities meant the public could not make fully informed submissions on the draft Plan – WA's major environmental plan for the predicted population explosion out to 2050. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the WA government celebrated World Biodiversity Day. Follow WAtoday on Twitter