Threatened Species Network

The Threatened Species Network’s (TSN) role is to offer advice and funding to groups that would like to do land management work that will help threatened species. Threatened species are those plants and animals that are disappearing across Australia, due to impacts from feral animals, weeds and changing fire patterns. A lot of these disappearing species can be found on Indigenous owned land (over 40 types of animals in the NT). In general Aboriginal land is in better condition that other areas, and that’s why these species can still be found there but have disappeared from other places.

Some projects that have been helping threatened species on Indigenous land and have received funding from the Threatened Species Network are:

• Dhimurru Aboriginal Land Management —have done surveys for threatened animals, turtle work and also looking for a threatened species of Butterfly. The project also wrote up a management plan to look after the rainforest patches where the butterfly lives.
• Northern Land Council —working with Traditional Owners and the community to look after Northern Quolls that have been moved onto islands to protect them from Cane Toads.
• Kimberley Land Council —working with Traditional Owners and the community to survey and manage a threatened fish, the Freshwater Sawfish in the Fitzroy River.
• Mabunji Aboriginal Resource Centre Lianthawirriyarra Sea Ranger Unit —undertaking surveys for five small animal species that are found on the Sir Edward Pellew Islands near Borroloola. One of these species, the Carpentarian Antechinus, only lives on these islands and one other place in the world (near Mount Isa in Qld).

The TSN Grants call for applications around April each year.

The Threatened Species Network (TSN) is a joint project of the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) and the World Wide fund for Nature Australia (WWF).