A threat may be listed as a key threatening process under the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 if it:
- adversely affects threatened species or ecological communities.
- could cause species or ecological communities to become threatened.
Key threatening processes are managed through strategies developed under the Saving our Species program.
See a list of key threatening processes
Some key threatening processes that pose threats to NSW native plants and animals include the following.
Climate change
Changes to rainfall or temperature can threaten the survival of native species or ecological communities. Climate change also interacts with other threatening processes including fire and weeds by amplifying the impacts of these threats. In combination, these processes can significantly increase the risk of extinction of a threatened species and degrade the integrity of ecological communities.
These biodiversity and climate change online tools provide users with access to information on local impacts of climate change on biodiversity.
Weeds
Weeds such as lantana and bitou bush can compete with native plants for resources such as light, nutrients and space. Weeds can aggressively invade areas and push out native plants and animals.
Find more information on how weeds threaten biodiversity and what we are doing about it.
Pest animals
Introduced invasive animals like the European rabbit and red fox can compete with native animals for habitat and/or prey on them. These pest animals can also damage native plants and degrade natural habitats, increasing pressure on the survival of native animals. See more information about pest animals.
Fire
Changes in fire patterns, such as an increase in the frequency of fire, can adversely affect or kill plants and animals. Fire can also cause loss of habitat and changes to vegetation structure or composition.
Read more about our fire management strategies and find out how fire affects plants and animals.
Diseases
Exotic fungal infections, viruses and other pathogens can weaken and kill native species. We have developed hygiene guidelines to help protect our biodiversity from Phytophthora cinnamomi, myrtle rust and amphibian chytrid fungus.
Saving our Species key threatening processes strategy
This strategy outlines the Saving our Species approach to managing key threatening processes, including developing specific strategies to manage priority threats.
Saving our Species is investing to improve threat management to reduce their impacts on biodiversity. This includes:
- Prevention actions to stop threats from entering New South Wales.
- Containment actions to contain a threat to a specific location.
- Strategic actions to improve management tools, guidance, and communications.
- Research actions to address gaps in our threat management knowledge.
Saving our Species is investing significant resources into on-ground management to protect threatened species and threatened ecological communities from key threatening processes at priority sites across New South Wales.
Featured project: Quantifying the impact of uncertainty on threat management for biodiversity
Led by CSIRO Conservation Decisions Team
Funding: $213,441 ($149,409 cash; $64,032 in kind)
This research investigated the question: which key threatening processes should be research priorities to save more threatened species? For some threats, we have good management knowledge and know that on-ground action provides good results, but for others we don't have a good understanding of how best to manage them or how severely they are impacting threatened species. This study used a value of information analysis to understand the potential gains of removing knowledge gaps on key threatening processes.
The project analysed almost 1,000 threatened species and threatened ecological communities affected by 20 key threatening processes. In their analysis, experts estimated the effectiveness of best-practice management and the expected persistence of species with and without each threat.
The research found that managers were confident about controlling invasive plant threats, but very uncertain about the benefits of managing high frequency fire, invasive predators, and the plant pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi. Overall, we are more certain in our ability to control threats than in our understanding of how species respond to threats.
This study is the first to quantify the value of information about threat management on such a broad scale. While many previous value of information studies have focused on single species and found minor benefits from removing uncertainty, this study showed that, when small benefits are aggregated across the many species impacted by threats, there can be large potential gains to management from reducing knowledge gaps.
Read the publication Quantifying the impact of uncertainty on threat management for biodiversity.