Making research partnerships work
Wed, 05 Jun 2019Rachel Morgain is the Threatened Species Recovery Hub’s Knowledge Broker. She believes stakeholder engagement in vitally important to achieving hub aims.
The central purpose of the Threatened Species Recovery Hub is delivering research that is relevant for and useable by decision-makers, land managers
and others responsible for recovering threatened species. Working with partners is vital if we’re to achieve this.
ver our four years of operation, our hub has worked with over 200 agencies across the breadth of the country. Our partners include Commonwealth, state
and territory policy agencies, conservation and land managers, environmental NGOs, Indigenous groups, local government, community
groups and businesses.
Many of these organisations are direct partners on our projects. Others have contributed knowledge, expertise, skills or data. Still others are end-users,
who seek to apply the findings of our research to inform their own contexts and challenges.
Strategic engagement
Guiding engagement at a strategic level is the hub’s Stakeholder Reference Group (SRG), which includes representatives from Commonwealth, state and
territory governments, NGOs, natural resource management organisations and the hub’s Indigenous Reference Group, Leadership Group and engagement team.
The SRG have a vital role in providing strategic input into our research activities and guidance into our hub’s engagement strategies.
The size and scale of the hub means that our research is relevant to much wider networks than can be involved day-to- day in our project-level
collaborations. In partnership with state governments, our hub is holding roadshows in capital cities, with plans for regional areas. These provide
an opportunity for audience members to hear findings from a breadth of hub research in one place and provide feedback into how project findings and
knowledge from the research can be shared. They have been a drawcard for many from government, natural resource management, ecological consulting,
community landcare groups and industry, many of them learning about our hub’s research for the first time.
Showcasing collaboration
Many of our major projects are made possible through the involvement of dozens of partners and collaborators across the country. Celebrating these
major achievements through product launches is a way to showcase the work and applaud these contributions. In 2018, our hub launched two books on threatened
species recovery, guidelines for plant translocation developed through the Australian Network for Plant Conservation, and Australia’s first Threatened Species Index for Australian birds (tsx.org.au).
These big events have the profile, but they are in reality just the end-point of much fuller processes of engagement, driven by a simple core principle
of research co-production. The day-to-day activities of our hub’s projects are guided by the awareness that research designed, implemented and
delivered with stakeholder input is almost certain to be better directed and more readily implemented than research undertaken in isolation.
For further information
Dr Rachel Morgain - rachel.morgain@anu.edu.au
Top image: Forums to share hub research findings and seek feedback from stakeholders are an important activity for the hub. Photo: Jaana Dielenberg
-
A million species at risk of extinction
Wed, 05 Jun 2019One million species threatened with extinction worldwide. That was the attention-grabbing headline that recently (and, sadly, briefly) captured the world’s attention, when the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES) released its first global assessment of how the planet’s biodiversity is faring – and what that means for people.
-
Kakadu collaboration for the yellow chat
Wed, 05 Jun 2019The Alligator Rivers yellow chat is a small, bright yellow insectivorous bird of the Kakadu floodplains. This Endangered species is imperilled by habitat changes caused by altered fire regimes, buffalo and feral pigs, rising sea levels and the spread of weeds like prickly mimosa and introduced grasses. What has been happening to degrade these floodplains has been equally of concern to Traditional Owners as to yellow chat researchers.
-
Making research partnerships work
Wed, 05 Jun 2019The central purpose of the Threatened Species Recovery Hub is delivering research that is relevant for and useable by decision-makers, land managers and others responsible for recovering threatened species. Working with partners is vital if we’re to achieve this.
-
Norfolk Island’s threatened flora
Wed, 05 Jun 2019The native forest on Norfolk Island provides vital habitat for the island’s threatened plant and bird species, many of which are found nowhere else on the planet (also called endemic). When the British colonised Norfolk Island in 1788, they cleared much of the original vegetation. Remaining forest is now protected in the national park and reserves, but plant recruitment is poor and invasive non-native plant species would likely overtake the forest without the on-going efforts of park managers. To preserve remaining forest, it is important to determine the main causes of declines and the most effective actions that managers can take to address these threats and restore native vegetation.
-
Reasons to be cheerful - Conservation success stories from Booderee National Park
Wed, 05 Jun 2019The Threatened Species Recovery Hub is celebrating great conservation outcomes from projects taking place in Booderee National Park for two Endangered species: the eastern bristlebird and the southern brown bandicoot (eastern subspecies). The Australian National University’s David Lindenmayer and Chris MacGregor give us the scoop on the bristlebird and Natasha Robinson shares the good news about the southern brown bandicoot.
Loading Twitter Feed. Please wait a moment ..