An area-based multiple species approach to threatened flora conservation and management in the Merredin area of Western Australia

The vascular flora of Western Australia is extremely rich, particularly in the largely cleared and highly populated areas of tile South-west land division. Here, about 8000 of the 11000 named species are found, including most of the State's 282 declared threatened flora and 1700 poorly known priority 1-4 flora. Recovery plans and interim recovery plans are being written and implemented for iii taxa of declared threatened flora, of which 38 are ranked as critically endangered. However, because of limited resources, individual recovery plans are unlikely to be developed for most flora in the lower endangered and vulnerable categories, and it is unlikely that surveys will be carried out for individual taxa of poorly known priority flora in anything but an opportunistic ad hoc manner, Alternative strategies are therefore required. An approach taken in Western Australia is to address the conservation and management of declared threatened and poorly known flora on a geographical area basis. This area-based approach has advantages over single taxon approaches as it has the potential to be more efficient in its use of resources, is more cost-effective and many taxa are covered by a single recovery team, It also provides broader options for management in relation to threatening processes. In this paper we outline tile implementation and operation of the first area-based threatened flora recovery program in Western Australia. This case study covers the problems encountered, lessens learned and solutions developed in the first 20 months of managing many threatened flora over a large, extensively cleared area of tile South-west agricultural region.