One thing that has always puzzled me as a long term professional conservation manager (responsible for Kakadu’s development and management for 9 of its 33 year life and Director of National Parks in Western Australia for 9 years as well) is the general lack of interest by most of the peak conservation NGOs. Sure, we now have several private bodies doing great work but the critical thinking being developed by you guys is hardly making a ripple in the political arena. It’s time these findings got some traction and REAL ACTION from at least the governments that can afford it – e.g. in Australia.

It seems to me that we have to start getting the persistent interest of the likes of Don Henry to keep governments on their toes. And not be able to get away with SAYING they are doing research when all they are really doing is MONITORING the decline over which they are presiding, as is happening at Kakadu at the moment. Your post of about two years ago drew attention to John Woinarski’s excellent paper on severe species decline (and that was only of the ‘common’ spp, not those for which Kakadu was ascribed on the World Heritage list, the endemics that were too uncommon to be picked up in John’s systematic monitoring on randomly located plots). That failed to get much attention – and yet John plotted a well argued course to look for the determining agents.

Can anyone tell me why the peak conservation NGOs are taking so little interest? Perhaps we are not talking in the right way to them?