Ecological Community State & Transition Models

Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities

We were commissioned by the then Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (now Department of the Environment and Energy) to develop State and Transition Models (STMs) for six Threatened ecological communities.

The ecological communities were listed as Threatened under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) and comprised three communities in New South Wales and three in South Australia.

Our role in the development of the STMs involved detailed literature review, extensive consultation with the Stewardship Team in the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and with working groups involved with protection of the communities, and collaboration with the University of New England and University of Adelaide. The final STMs were employed to underpin development of a tool for the Environmental Stewardship Program to assess funding applications.

We also developed and provided a training module to support the implementation of this program. Training materials to support the on-ground delivery of the projects included a description of ecological communities and associated STMs, site assessment processes, management actions, and a comprehensive description of required activities, underpinning principles and supporting information.

We delivered training and capacity building to key personnel, including designing a practical exercise to test the application of site assessment processes among field officers as part of field officer training.

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