BioCondition

What is BioCondition

Natural resource management is a complex field with a lot of interacting parts. It can be very hard to work out whether things are improving or declining. In order to know where to focus our collective efforts it is important to know what condition our landscape is in and whether it is getting better or worse.

To do this we need a tool that can just look at the most important parts of the landscape and those parts that don’t change with the season but tell us something about the long term trend in condition. The Biocondition Assessment Tool, developed over many years by Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM), can do this.

The criteria have been designed as measures of the key functions of the landscape that can be recorded the same way by any person over time. Once we have an idea of the condition (good or poor) and trend (improving or declining) of our landscape then we can decide what actions to take to shift the condition in the direction that we need for sustainable and resilient communities to thrive in the Condamine catchment. Condamine Alliance will be supporting Biocondition Assessment training courses in the catchment over the next 2 years - subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with timing and location.

BioCondition Assessment Training Opportunity

Condamine Alliance will host regular training on the use of the BioCondition Assessment method.

If you are interested in participating in training please complete the following Expression of Interest form.

Training Expression of Interest form

The BioCondition assessment framework and methodology was developed by the Department of Environment and Resource Management to enable the consistent assessment for the condition of terrestrial biodiversity in Queensland. The BioCondition assessment methodology is designed to provide valuable information about the health of the environment for landholders and natural resource management organizations to monitor the effects of land management practices.

The full day BioCondition v2.1 training course will consist of a short theory session followed by a half day site assessment of mapped remnant RE11.9.5 in Irongate Conservation Park where participants will undertake a full BioCondition assessment. The full cost of the training will be $300 but volunteers representing not-for-profit groups from the Condamine catchment will be supported by Condamine Alliance to complete the training for Free.

Once trained, volunteers from youth groups, community groups and Landcare groups that are interested in monitoring and improving areas of remnant vegetation will be invited to ‘Adopt a Threatened Vegetation Patch’.

Participating groups will be able to apply the BioCondition assessment tool to benchmark the condition of their vegetation patch, make informed decisions about practical ways to improve its condition, access funding to undertake some simple activities that will improve the condition of the vegetation patch for habitat and biodiversity values and assess the impact using the BioCondition tool.

A healthy and functioning ecosystem is measured by its biodiversity; the variety of plants and animals, the variety of the composition and structure and the way all of the components work together. BioCondition is a site based, quantitative assessment that can be used for any vegetation type, and can be easily repeated over space and time to make well informed comparisons.

Please complete the Expression of Interest form and return to Alexandra Kennedy by email alexandra.kennedy@condaminealliance.com.au or fax 07 4620 0100

For more information please call Alex on (07) 4620 0119 or mobile 0439 673 083.

If you would like more information on BioCondition check out the BioCondition Manual on the Department of Environment and Resource Management website here.