Threatened Species - Australian Definition

Australian Definition

The Commonwealth of Australia has legislation for categorising and protecting endangered species, namely the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, which is known in short as the EPBC Act. This Act has six categories; Extinct, Extinct in the wild, Critically endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, and Conservation dependent, defined in Section 179 of the Act, and could be summarised as;

• "Extinct" - "no reasonable doubt that the last member of the species has died",
• "Extinct in the wild" - "known only to survive in cultivation" and "despite exhaustive surveys" has not been seen in the wild,
• "Critically endangered" - "extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future",
• "Endangered" - "very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future",
• "Vulnerable" - "high risk of extinction in the wild in medium-term future", and
• "Conservation dependent" - "focus of a specific conservation program" without which the species would enter one of the above categories.

The EPBC Act also recognises and protects threatened ecosystems such as plant communities, and Ramsar Convention wetlands used by migratory birds.

Individual states and territories of Australia are bound under the EPBC Act, but may also have legislation which gives further protection to certain species, for example Western Australia's Wildlife Conservation Act 1950. Some species, such as Lewin's Rail (Lewinia pectoralis), are not listed as threatened species under the EPBC Act, but they may be recognised as threatened by individual states or territories.