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ABSTRACT: Twenty native mammals have become extinct from Australia's rangelands in the last 200 years. That is not the end of the problem: unfortunately, declines in biodiversity continue across most of the rangelands. We argue that this is detrimental to all rangeland users: that we are sullying an international asset; that we are undermining the basis of a major rangeland industry, tourism; that we are sabotaging the potential for the development of alternative rangeland uses (most notably sustainable use of native wildlife); that such losses provide evidence that we are poor managers; that such losses diminish our lives; that such losses indicate that at least some of our environments are operating at reduced functionality; and that such losses take away or reduce important and wide- ranging environmental services.
Things need to improve. We see the pathway to such improvement as involving (i) the development of a clear goal for biodiversity conservation in the rangelands (maintenance of viable populations of all native species of plants and animals at appropriate spatial and temporal scales), (ii) the development of explicit targets relating to this goal, and set at continental, jurisdiction, regional and property scales; and (iii) monitoring progress towards this goal. While we recognise that our existing knowledge base is imperfect, such limitation should not delay the implementation of these steps. We consider that there is sufficient management expertise to realise a rangeland biodiversity goal. However, there are two more serious impediments in achieving the goal: current lack of resources and of societal agreement.