The Invasive Species Council has launched a proposal for a national biosecurity taskforce, with the working title ‘Environment Health Australia’.
The proposal forms the bulk of a new ISC report, ‘Keeping Nature Safe’. The concept builds on assessments in Australia’s 2011 State of the Environment report that Government responses to invasive species are “uncoordinated at the national level, reactive, focused on larger animals, biased towards potential impact on primary industry at the expense of the total ecosystem, and critically under-resourced”.
The ISC argues that the new taskforce is needed to
- Improve environmental biosecurity preparedness;
- Manage environmental invasions more effectively through ecological approaches;
- Improve community awareness and vigilance; and
- Improve coordination and collaboration between jurisdictions, agencies and sectors.
