James A. Fitzsimons

The Nature Conservancy · Australia Program

Australia is the only nation to span a continent and is home to a diversity of unique species and stunning landscapes. Billions of dollars in economic activity and many thousands of jobs depend on our natural environment. However, Australia is facing one of the highest species extinction rates in the world and the state of our environment remains o...

In response to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Australia has committed to protecting 30 per cent of lands and oceans for nature conservation by 2030. Privately protected areas are vital to meeting this target and establishing an ecologically representative and well-connected National Reserve...

Given the prevalence of common and threatened bird species within cities, more research is necessary to determine human attitudes to urban birds and how this may affect conservation in urban areas In Australia, few studies have considered the impact of human attitudes on birds; those that have focused primarily on particular species. In this study,...

Forty-six currently recognized species of four-fingered skinks (or rainbow skinks) of the genus Carlia occur in the Australopapuan region. Members of Carlia feed primarily on arthropods. The Closed-litter Rainbow Skink (Carlia longipes) occurs along the coast and adjacent hinterland from Cairns to Prince Charlotte Bay in northeastern Queensland, Au...

The second volume of the Handbook of Australia, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (HANZAB, Marchant and Higgins 1993) was published in 1993. A lot has been published since then to increase our insights into the biology and ecology of Australian birds. This is certainly true for the falcons (family Falconidae), an iconic global family of raptors. Nobo...

Following intense negotiation over several years, the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework — adopted in December 2022 — includes an ambitious target for area-based conservation as part of the global effort to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. Target 3 of the framework aims to increase the global cove...

Globally, there is an urgent need for widespread restoration of coastal wetlands like mangroves and saltmarsh. This restoration has been slow to progress in Australia for a number of reasons, including legal issues surrounding land tenure, ownership and use. This paper uses the responses to a survey of coastal zone experts to identify and articulat...

This chapter examines how Healthy Country Planning and an adaptation of The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC’s) Development by Design process have been used to support social value in planning and development assessment processes in northern Australia. The combined use of Healthy Country Planning and Development by Design aims to increase the capacity of...

The Australasian Bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus) is a globally endangered species that has undergone a decline in population associated with loss of wetlands and changes to hydrology. Australasian Bitterns typically utilise wetlands composed of reeds, sedges, rushes and other fringing or emergent vegetation. Here, I document the use of short open...

Niniejsze Wytyczne poswiecone sa tworzeniu obszarów chronionych prywatnie (OChP) oraz zarzadzaniu nimi. Ich adresatami sa praktycy i decydenci, którzy zajmuja sie lub beda zajmowac sie takimi obszarami. OChP to według defi nicji IUCN obszar chroniony podlegajacy nadzorowi prywatnemu. Moze to byc nadzór sprawowany przez pojedyncze osoby lub grupy os...

Achieving a sustainable socio-ecological future now requires large-scale environmental repair actioned across legislative borders. Yet, enabling large-scale conservation is complicated by policy-making processes that grapple with a disconnect between socio-economic interests and political priorities, multiple sources of knowledge, and differing app...

Australia is experiencing mounting pressures related to processes of urbanisation, biodiversity loss and climate change felt at large in cities. At the same time, it is cities that can take the leading role in pioneering approaches and solutions to respond to those coupling emergencies. In this perspective piece we respond to the following question...

Northern Australian biomes hold high biodiversity values within largely intact vegetation complexes, yet many species of mammals, and some other taxa, are endangered. Recently, six mammal species were added to the 20 or so already listed in the Australian endangered category. Current predictions suggest that nine species of mammal in northern Austr...

Globally, privately protected area (PPA) programs are increasing in size and number. Participating in a PPA program can be fiscally challenging for landholders (e.g., enrollment costs; potential reduction in land value; opportunity costs; costs of ongoing management). Government and nongovernmental organizations often offer financial incentives to...

This article considers how "rolling covenants" (i.e., covenants on land title that can operate in a "rolling" geographic area to keep pace with sea-level rise) can be used to permit productive use of land in the short term, while ensuring land use can shift over time to allow for coastal ecosystem migration in the medium to long term. We use Austra...

Nature as a climate solution: Country, culture and nature-based solutions for mitigating climate change

Northern Australia is the focus of intense development and investment interest. At the Commonwealth level alone, promotion of the northern Australia development agenda is facilitated by a dedicated Ministerial portfolio and departmental office, a road map for investment opportunities and policy reform (‘White Paper on Developing Northern Australia’...

This project has developed and tested a framework for assessing research value across the life cycle of conservation research projects and programs. This is the first comprehensive attempt of its kind to build and test a multimodal, integrated, qualitative and quantitative framework for achieving and assessing value in environmental research. The r...

The diets of raptors are some of the best studied and well-known of all bird groups. Raptors are typically carnivores, hunting and feeding on vertebrates and, for some species, invertebrates. Here, we described instances of the Black Kite (Milvus migrans) and Whistling Kite (Haliastur sphenurus) consuming non-native avocado (Persea americana) fruit...

Protected areas are an essential component of global conservation efforts. Although extensive information is available on the location of protected areas governed by governments, data on privately protected areas remain elusive at the global level. These are areas governed by private individuals and groups—ranging from families to religious institu...

The Darwin Agreement is a collective response from Australian national restoration organisations to the United Nation’s declaration of 2021–2030 as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The agreement functions as terms of reference for a new alliance, the Restoration Decade Alliance, to optimise on-ground actions and advocacy to retain native eco...

Restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems is essential to meet both national and global conservation targets and to counteract declines in coastal marine ecosystems. However, despite its status as a world leader in marine protection, Australia is lagging behind other countries in the implementation of coastal and marine restoration. Effective le...

Gulls (Larus spp.) have a diet that includes fish, but they are also often dietary generalists. A limited number of dietary studies have been undertaken on the Pacific Gull Larus pacificus, which are endemic to Australia. Here, an observation of depredation by a Pacific Gull on a Southern Fiddler Ray Trygonorrhina dumerilii is described. Prior to t...

Observations are presented of aggression between a pair of Little Lorikeets Glossopsitta pusilla and an Eastern Rosella Platycercus eximius at a nest hollow, and nesting activity by the Lorikeets in inner eastern Melbourne, Victoria. Aggression between these two species does not appear to have been previously reported, while the timing of the nesti...

Urban forests provide many ecosystem services, such as reducing heat, improving air quality, treatment of stormwater, carbon sequestration, as well as biodiversity benefits. These benefits have resulted in increasing demand for urban forests and strategies to maintain and enhance this natural infrastructure. In response to a broader resilience stra...

本ガイドラインは民間保護地域（または PPA）の計画立案や管理 について言及している。IUCN が定義する民間保護地域（すなわち、 自然および関連する生態系サービス、文化的価値の長期的な保護 を成し遂げるために、法令その他有効な方法を以て認められ、特 定の目的のために用いられる、管理された明確に境界が定められ た地理的な空間である）は民間のガバナンスによって統治されて いる保護地域である。これには個人や個人の集団、NGO、事業会 社や複数の PPA の管理を目的として設立された小規模の会社など を含む企業、エコツーリズム会社などの営利目的の所有者、大学 や野外観測所などの研究機関、あるいは宗教団体などが含まれる。 全ての民間による保全の取り組みが保護地域の定義を満たしてい るわけではなく、ま...

The intent of The Nature Conservancy in Australia has always been to optimise conservation outcomes for people and nature, partnering with government, Indigenous and private landowners through a range of initiatives. James Fitzsimons chronicles some of the organisation’s projects and reveals some of its secrets to success.

In 2018, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a decision on protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). It contains the definition of an OECM and related scientific and technical advice that has broadened the scope of governance authorities and areas that can be engaged and recognised...

In 2021, as part of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the world’s nations will meet to determine biodiversity targets for this decade, including area-based protection targets. Conservation tenders (a form of market-based instrument) have been used in several countries for the protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services w...

The Ramsar Convention (or the Convention on Wetlands), signed in 1971, was one of the first international conservation agreements, promoting global wise use of wetlands. It has three primary objectives: national designation and management of wetlands of international importance; general wise use of wetlands; and international cooperation. We examin...

Protected and conserved areas (PCAs) throughout the world face huge challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We give a global overview of impacts and responses. Protected area agencies, NGOs and research groups, together with the communities that support the management of PCAs, have conducted online studies to understand the overall impacts...

Cities globally are greening their urban fabric, but to contribute positively to the biodiversity extinction crisis, local governments must explicitly target actions for biodiversity. We apply the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) framework — nature for nature, society and culture — to elevate...

Volunteers and citizen scientists can make an important contribution to bird monitoring and threatened species conservation projects. Members of BirdLife Australia's Threatened Bird Network (TBN), a programme which encouraged community participation in conservation projects for threatened birds, were surveyed in 2013 to gain an insight into their d...

In Australia’s Murray–Darling Basin, efforts to restore water justice for the environment have focused on environmental flows for natural values of wetlands and floodplains. But there has also been an emergence of collaborative partnerships between environmental water managers and First Nations community organizations to water ‘Country’. The A$180...

Measuring, reporting, and forecasting research impact beyond academia has become increasingly important to demonstrate and understand real-world benefits. This is arguably most important in crisis disciplines such as medicine, environmental sustainability and biodiversity conservation, where application of new knowledge is urgently needed to improv...

Privately protected areas promote the conservation of biodiversity and have also been shown to conserve valuable ecosystem services. Legally binding instruments like conservation covenants are important mechanisms to protect the natural environment on private land. However, the extent to which conservation covenants either explicitly require or al...

In BirdingASIA 33, Choudhury (2020) made the case for the continued use of the common name White-winged Wood Duck for Asarcornis scutulata (as opposed to White-winged Duck used by international bird lists), due to longstanding usage of that name in the countries in which it occurs. In discussing some of the challenges with the use of White-winged W...

Shellfish reefs are one of the most depleted marine ecosystems in the world, and there is considerable interest and efforts to restore the ecosystems. When degraded reefs require the addition of new substrate to support oyster re‐establishment, recycled shells can be used to rebuild new reef bases. Shell recycling as a means of procuring shells was...

Temporary wetlands are characterized by frequent drying resulting in a unique, highly specialized assemblage of often rare or specialized plant and animal species. They are found on all continents and in a variety of landscape settings. Although accurate estimates of the abundance of temporary wetlands are available in only a few countries, global...

The Night Parrot Pezoporus occidentalis is one of the least known and most threatened of Australia’s bird species. In recent decades, breeding has been confirmed at only two remote regions in inland Australia. Consequently, reports of its presence in new locations have important conservation implications and elicit intense public interest. Between...

Les présentes lignes directrices abordent la création et la gestion des aires protégées à gouvernance privée (APP). Elles sont destinées aux professionnels et décideurs impliqués dans le domaine APP. Une APP est une aire protégée, telle que définie par l’UICN, sous gouvernance privée. Les APP peuvent être gérées pas un d’individu ou un groupe d’ind...

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a dramatic impact on the global community; on people's lives and health, livelihoods, economies, and behaviours. Most zoonotic disease pandemics, including COVID-19, arise from the unsustainable exploitation of nature. This special editorial provides a snapshot of how protected and conserved areas around the world ar...

Private and Indigenous protected areas are a growing component of the global protected area network. Countries can benefit from a diversity of protected area governance types as a means of creating complementarity and robust national reserve networks. However, strategically allocating resources among governance types requires a greater understandin...

The unprecedented bushfires of 2019-2020 burnt significant areas of forest and woodland in eastern and southern Australia. The size of the area burnt, and intensity of the fire has meant the majority of habitat for a large number of threatened species has been impacted, placing high conservation value on the unburnt refuges remaining. Most Australi...

Widespread global declines in shellfish reefs (ecosystem-forming bivalves such as oysters and mussels) have led to growing interest in their restoration and protection. With restoration projects now occurring on four continents and in at least seven countries, global restoration guidelines for these ecosystems have been developed based on experienc...

New technology reveals the value of the coast like never before

Migratory shorebird species depend on a suite of interconnected sites and protection of these sites as part of a network increasing conservation approach. Partnering sites based on shared migratory bird species can be a powerful tool for implementing conservation action. To assist the Adelaide International Bird Sanctuary (AIBS), South Australia, i...

In February 2019, The Nature Conservancy Australia and partner Tiverton Rothwell Agriculture, became the new owners of two cattle stations located where the floodplains of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee rivers in western New South Wales. Known as Juanbung and Boyong, and spanning 33,765 hectares, these two properties also encompass the Great Cumbung...

Oyster Rock occurs in the Institut Islands/Montesquieu Islands in the Kimberley region, north-western Western Australia. Very few ornithological surveys of this island have been undertaken. We circumnavigated the rock on 23 April 2017 and observed the following species (and estimated numbers): Roseate Tern Sterna dougallii (at least 300), Greater C...

Reef ecosystems all over the world are in decline and managers urgently need information that can assess management interventions and set national conservation targets. We assess the conservation status and risk of ecosystem collapse for the Oyster Reef Ecosystem of Southern and Eastern Australia, which comprises two community sub-types established...

Members of the family Sturnidae (starlings and mynas) are mostly omnivorous, although the importance and proportion of different categories of food (e.g. fruit, seeds, insects) to the diet can vary between species and seasons. The diet of the jungle myna Acridotheres fuscus consists of “insects, fruit, seeds and nectar” (Ali 1999; Craig and Feare 2...

The diet of the Mourning Gecko (Lepidodactylus lugubris) on Fiji is described as “insectivorous, eating small moths, ants, beetles, and other insects”, however, few species-specific details of prey type for L. lugubris are recorded. Here we describe the capture the consumption of an an emerald moth Thalassodes sp. (most likely T. chloropis) by L. l...

In an era characterised by recurrent large wildfires in many parts of the globe, there is a critical need to understand how animal species respond to fires, the rates at which populations can recover, and the functional changes fires may cause. Using quantified changes in habitat parameters over a ~400 year post‐fire chronosequence in an obligate‐s...

Most hornbills are omnivorous, but there are few specific records of how vertebrate prey are handled by hornbills, particularly in Asia. I describe an observation of a pair of Indian Grey Hornbills Ocyceros birostris handling a large vertebrate prey item (Garden Lizard Calotes versicolor) which included both manipulation (crushing) in the bill and...

Ecosystems that fringe our coastlines – saltmarshes, mangrove forests and seagrass meadows – provide a bounty of benefits for Australians. These often-neglected ecosystems support livelihoods, provide a wonderland for recreation and enable mitigation and adaptation to the perils of a changing coastline. Whilst some of these benefits are difficult t...

Restoration Guidelines for Shellfish Reefs (Mandarin version)

Cantonese version of Restoration Guidelines for Shellfish Reefs

Urbanisation is a leading cause of biodiversity loss and habitat fragmentation internationally, and the conservation of representative native assemblages is a challenge confronting environmental managers in expanding urban landscapes. This study investigates the bird assemblages occurring in a rapidly growing regional centre, Ballarat, southeastern...

Estas directrices abordan la planificación y la gestión de áreas bajo protección privada (APP). De acuerdo con la UICN, un área bajo protección privada (es decir, un espacio geográfico claramente definido, reconocido, dedicado y gestionado, mediante mecanismos legales u otros tipos de medios eficaces para conseguir la conservación a largo plazo de...

This guide is for practitioners, managers and community members to provide both guidance in decision-making for establishing shellfish reef restoration projects and examples of different approaches undertaken by experienced practitioners in a variety of geographic, environmental and social settings. The guide both updates and expands on the origin...

After three years of work, Resilient Melbourne and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) have released a new metropolitan wide urban forest strategy for Melbourne called Living Melbourne: our metropolitan urban forest. The strategy is a first for Australia (and one of the first in the world) in its scale and because it has mapped all vegetation across publi...

Nectar from plants is a particularly important food source for a number of bird families. Here, 4 observations of nectar foraging by family groups of Little Ravens (Corvus mellori), a species only recently recorded as consuming nectar, are described. There are few details of nectarivory in the major reviews of the Corvidae, but this behavior has be...

The concept of ecosystem services (ES) aims to quantify the contribution of ecosystems to human welfare. Past research has revealed a range of attitudes and levels of understanding among policy makers or practitioners to this concept. This study investigated the experience of environmental decision makers with the application of ES, using the state...

Revolving funds buy land with high nature value, protect these values through conservation agreements and then resell them. The funds from sales then purchase more land.

The Rockwarbler Origma solitaria is restricted to the sedimentary-rock formations around the Sydney region of New South Wales and, like other species in the Acanthizidae, is mainly insectivorous, although its diet is considered poorly known. Here we report on two observations of nectarivory, a food source not previously reported for this species. T...

Habitat modification by fire and habitat loss via anthropogenic vegetation clearance and fragmentation both impact animal populations. Yet, there has been limited investigation as to whether animals that decline under one of these types of habitat change also decline under the other, and how their cumulative impacts affect the status of species and...

We describe two instances of a Nankeen Kestrel Falco cenchroides caching a House Mouse Mus musculus in winter: (1) beneath ground vegetation, and (2) beneath a clod of earth in a ploughed field. As caching is seldom reported in this or other Australian falcons, we review reports of caching by Australian falcons, and by Northern Hemisphere kestrels...

There is increased awareness of the need to balance multiple societal values in land use and development planning. Best practice has promoted the use of landscape-level conservation planning and application of the ‘mitigation hierarchy’, which focuses on avoiding, minimizing or compensating for impacts of development projects. However, environmenta...

The extent to which Privately Protected Areas (PPAs) are integrated into national networks of protected areas varies around the world, and even within countries. Australia is provided as an example where PPAs are recognised as important to the national system, where active encouragement for inclusion has occurred but where some further integration...

https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/47916 These guidelines address planning and management of privately protected areas (or PPAs) and the guidance is aimed principally at practitioners and policy makers, who are or may be involved with PPAs. Guidance is given on all aspects of PPA establishment, management and reporting, and information is prov...

Australia was one of the first countries to declare a marine protected area (MPA) in 1879, but it was not until the 1960s and 1970s, in efforts to protect the Great Barrier Reef, that marine protection was considered in a concerted way. The more recent development of MPA networks (or systems) by governments in state, territory and national (Commonw...

Despite its widespread range overlapping with urban centres and agricultural areas of Australia, there are few published studies on many aspects of the ecology of the Jacky Lizard Amphibolurus muricatus in the wild, including its diet. We describe an instance of a Jacky Lizard foraging on abundant mating bibionid flies Bibio imitator amongst remnan...

There is a growing recognition of the contribution that privately-owned land makes to conservation efforts, and governments are increasingly counting privately protected areas (PPAs) towards their international conservation commitments. The public availability of spatial data on countries' conservation estates is important for broad-scale conservat...

Global conservation efforts are increasingly focused on expanding the amount of permanently protected private land, with the aim of preserving biodiversity. These efforts are often constrained by financial resources, particularly where land acquisition is expensive, or where landowners are reluctant to enter into conservation agreements. Purchase-p...

As partnerships between Indigenous peoples and conservation practitioners mature, new methods are being sought to assess their effectiveness. The increasing diversity of income sources mobilised by Indigenous land and sea managers in Australia is intensifying the pressures on them to demonstrate their ‘effectiveness’ through a range of frameworks,...

Private land conservation has an increasingly important role in ensuring global conservation networks are comprehensive, adequate and representative. To contribute to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Target 11, areas on private land must be either privately protected areas (PPAs) or ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ (...

An alternative to buying land and creating a conservation reserve is to enter into permanent agreements with private landholders (e.g. conservation covenants) that restrict both current and future landowners from conducting activities that would harm their land's ecological value. In conjunction with Australian revolving fund managers, we built a B...

The Land for Wildlife program started in Victoria in 1981 as a voluntary program with the broad aim of supporting landholders in providing habitat for wildlife on their property. The program has since spread across Australia and is implemented in a range of guises, through a variety of governance approaches. This research collected qualitative and...

Finding sustainable ways to increase the amount of private land protected for biodiversity is a challenge for many conservation organizations. In a number of countries, organizations use ‘revolving fund’ programs, whereby land is purchased, and then on-sold to conservation-minded owners with a condition to enter into a conservation covenant or ease...