Background

When botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander set foot on the east coast of Australia in April 1770, they entered a botanical paradise. By chance, the landfall of Captain James Cook's "Endeavour" coincided with one of the most botanically rich areas of Australia and Banks and Solander spent countless hours collecting and drawing the numerous new plant species that confronted them. Earlier collections had been made by Dutch explorers on the west coast but the collections made during the voyage of the "Endeavour" were far more comprehensive and extensive.

In the 200+ years following European settlement, the Australian flora has suffered greatly in the name of progress. Surprisingly, the flora around the original settlement at Port Jackson has suffered somewhat less that is the case in many other parts of the country. This can be attributed to the fact that the rugged sandstone topography has made large-scale development an expensive proposition. Overall, however, it is believed that around 76 plant species have become extinct during the two centuries since European settlement with approximately another 301 species being at serious risk in the short term. Of course, no one knows how many species may have been lost before they were botanically described.

Plant loss occurs through a variety of mechanisms not always due to human intervention. Natural processes may result in climatic changes which can lead to extinction or gradual evolution of species as they cope with the changed conditions. These are long term effects which may take place over millions of years. In contrast, plant loss due to human activities are far more dramatic and can produce irreversible effects in a few decades.

In 1984, Leigh, Boden and Briggs (see Further Information) described the main recognised threats to Australian plants and the number of species effected by each threat. These are:

• Grazing
• Agriculture
• Forestry
• Roadworks
• Mining and Quarrying
• Urbanization and Industrial Development
• Horticultural Collecting
• Fire (including lack of fire)
• Competition
• Herbicides
• Low Numbers

In addition to these, a range of other threats include recreation, rubbish dumping, railway maintenance, water storage, insect attack, erosion. A number of species are effected by more than one threat.

Most of the impacts of human activities are obvious. It's not difficult to imagine the effect that urban development, quarrying, roadworks and agriculture might have on a rare plant in the area being developed. Other threats are more subtle in their impacts. For example:

• Fire - This is one of the more misunderstood factors in the Australian environment. The widely held view is that "the bush regenerates after fire". Unfortunately this is only partly true and both the frequency and intensity of fire can have a marked impact on the composition of the flora in a particular area of vegetation.
  
  Some plant species rely solely on seed for their regeneration after a fire (other plants may be able to regenerate by vegetative shoots from the roots or from the burnt stems). Most plants require a number of years following germination before they reach maturity and are able to flower and set seed. If fire occurs more frequently than the time that the plants take to mature, the plants may be eliminated from the particular area. This is a factor that must be considered by bushfire control authorities who routinely initiate "control burns" for the protection of property. Threatened plants in this category include Acacia pubescens, Banksia lullfitzii, Persoonia rudis and Tetratheca remota.
  
  Some other plant species, such as Hakea, depend heavily on fire for regeneration. These are species which retain seed within woody capsules which remain closed until stimulated to open by the heat from a bushfire. Other plants threatened by lack of fire include Swainsona laxa and Swainsona recta.
  
  
• Horticultural Collecting - Unfortunately there are people in the community who "must have" particular plants in their collections and who are quite prepared to remove plants from the wild irrespective of the rareity of the plants or their chances of survival in cultivation. Large scale collection also occurs by people out for "a quick buck". Threatened species in this category include Eucalyptus rhodanthe (rose mallee), Calochilis richae (bald-lip beard orchid) and Phaius tancarvilliae (swamp lily).
  
  
• Low Numbers - There is usually a lower limit to the numbers of plants in a population below which the viability of retaining the species in the long term is dubious irrespective of the degree of protection provided. One unforeseen event such as fire or unauthorised clearing could see the entire population wiped out. Threatened species known to exist in excessively low numbers include Grevillea batrachioides (WA), Grevillea rara (WA), Logania insularis (SA), Owenia cepiodora (Qld/NSW) and Wollemia nobilis (Wollemi pine - NSW).

Further information on the threats to Australian flora is given by the Environmental Resources Information Network (see Further Information.)

Threatened Flora Lists

Until 1998, three distinct lists existed for threatened flora at a national level:

• Schedules to the Commonwealth's Endangered Species Protection Act 1992.
• The ANZECC lists of threatened fauna and flora.
• The Rare or Threatened Australian Plants (ROTAP) list developed by the CSIRO. This system is based on a coding system which provides a means of ranking the plants according to the level of risk they face in the wild.

On 16 July 2000, the Commonwealth Government introduced the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). This act superseded the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992 (and several other Acts). In conjunction with the introduction of the EPBC Act, the aim is to now have a single list of threatened flora which will be reflected in Schedules to that Act.

EPBC Act Threatened Species Lists

In respect of threatened plant species, the EPBC Act recognises the following categories:

• Extinct - no reasonable doubt that the last member of the species has died.
• Extinct in the wild - species exists only in cultivation.
• Critically endangered - extremely high risk of extinction in the immediate future.
• Endangered - very high risk of extinction in the near future.
• Vulnerable - high risk of extinction in the medium term
• Conservation dependent - species is dependent on a specific conservation program without which it would become vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered within 5 years.

The website for the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts has a Guide to the EPBC Act and also has a list of threatened species currently protected under the Act.

ROTAP Coding System

Despite the move to a combined national flora list, the ROTAP coding system devised by Leigh, Briggs and Hartley is still commonly seen in numerous publications and a number of species listed under the ROTAP system have yet to be scheduled under the EPBC Act. For these reasons, an understanding of the ROTAP coding system is worthwhile.

The system is based on the combination of three categories:

• Plant Distribution Category

  A numerical value indicating how widespread the species is.

• Conservation Status Category

  An alphabetical code which indicates the rarity of the species.

• Reservation Status Category

  A supplementary code which indicates the adequacy of protection of the species within proclaimed reserves.

An outline of the coding system is given in Table 1 followed by an example of how the coding system is applied in practice:

Example of the Application of ROTAP Codes

As an example of the use of the codes, consider Dillwynia tenuifolia, one of the "bush peas" of eastern New South Wales. This species is listed as Vulnerable under the EPBC Act and has a ROTAP Code of 2RCa which means:

	2:		It has a range covering less than 100km
	R:		Rare in the wild but with no current identifiable threat
	Ca:		Occurs within proclaimed reserves and the known population exceeds 1000 plants

State and Territory Threatened Flora Lists

In addition to the national lists of threatened flora, each State and Territory has its own listing. These will often include species not included on the national list or will apply a higher conservation category than the national category for a specific plant. These apparent anomalies occur for several reasons but are often due to a plant occurring in several states but being very restricted or under a greater threat in one state.

For further information on State and Territory lists, refer to the specific Parks and Wildlife authority.

Further Information

Much of the material for this page has come from one or more of the following publications. Briggs and Leigh (1995) is an essential guide to the ROTAP Coding system.

Books and Journals:

• Briggs, J.D. and Leigh, J.H. (1995); Rare or Threatened Australian Plants, Revised Edition, CSIRO Publishing, Australia.
  
• Butler, G (1993); The Cultivation of Australia's Threatened Flora, Association of Societies for Growing Australian Plants, 17th Biennial Seminar, Robert Menzies College, Sydney, September/October 1993.
  
• Leigh, J, Boden, R and Briggs, J. (1984); Extinct and Endangered Plants of Australia, MacMillan Australia.
  
• Leigh, J and Briggs, J. (1991); Conservation of Vascular Plants in Australia, in Native Plants for New South Wales (newsletter of the NSW Region of the Society for Growing Australian Plants), Vol.26, No.2, June 1991.
  
• Leigh, J, Briggs, J and Hartley, W. (1981); Rare or Threatened Australian Plants, Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, Special Publication 7.
  

Internet:

• Australian Network for Plant Conservation - working to save Australia's native plants with links to State and Territory threatened species.
  
  
• Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts site includes:
  • The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act Homepage.
  • Lists of all species of Australian plants classified as Extinct, Endangered or Vulnerable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
  
  
• Threatened Species Network -extensive information and links.
  
  
• The Wollemi Pine is an example of a small population of a species remaining undetected within 200km of a major population centre. Information can be found at:
  • The Wollemi Pine - the Dinosaur tree.
  • Wollemi Pine Species Profile Sheet.