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Tuesday, 22 May 2012
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Listing of species and ecological communities

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Listing of species and ecological communities
Conservation Codes

The Wildlife Conservation Act 1950 provides for taxa (species, subspecies and varieties) of native plants (flora) and native animals (fauna) to be specially protected because they are under identifiable threat of extinction, are rare, or otherwise in need of special protection.

Such specially protected wildlife (fauna and flora) is considered to be "threatened". The Minister may also list ecological communities which are at risk of becoming destroyed.

Photograph of a Dibbler, which is an example of a threatened species
Photo: A Dibbler

 Threatened species and communities lists:

For current priority flora listing please see the conservation status information on the FloraBase website.

Changes to the threatened species and communities lists

 Listing

Threatened wildlife listings are reviewed annually and changes can be recommended by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC). The public is invited to submit nominations to add taxa to, or delete taxa from, the current Declared Rare Flora and Specially Protected Fauna lists (for more information on how to submit a nomination and to download nomination forms and guidelines please see our Call for public nominations for listing (and delisting) of threatened plants and animals page.

There is currently no legislation covering the conservation of threatened ecological communities. However, an informal, non-statutory process is in place. See WA’s Threatened Ecological Communities for more information.

 Ranking

At the time of nomination a recommended ranking of Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN) or Vulnerable (VU) is also applied to the taxon.

Because of resource limitations and the large number of threatened species, setting priorities is very important. The Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) uses the IUCN (2001) Red List Categories and Criteria to allocate ‘rankings’ to listed threatened taxa. This exercise was first conducted in 1995 and has been regularly reviewed since. Rankings dictate which taxa should receive the highest priority for the development of recovery plans and allocation of resources.

Public nominations can also be made to the TSSC to change the threat category to which listed taxa are assigned.  The same process applies as for the listing or de-listing of threatened taxa.

For further information contact:

The Manager,
Species and Communities Branch,
Department of Environment and Conservation
Locked Bag 104,
Bentley Delivery Centre,
WA 6983

Email for flora is: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Email for fauna is: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

For the criteria used to determine whether a species should be listed as threatened see Policies.
Distributional data on listed species can be obtained from the Department.