An aquatic root mat community found in caves in the Yanchep National Park and ironstone soil areas featuring massed everlastings in spring are included among the first 65 threatened ecological communities listed under WA’s Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016.

According to the spring edition of Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) Bushland News, the aquatic root mat found in caves in the Yanchep National Park and surrounds is a threatened ecological community, which also supports a critically endangered cave shrimp.

The Perth to Gingin ironstone association community occurring on ironstone soils characterised by massed everlastings is also critically endangered.

A federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water post in 2009 said in Yanchep National Park, six caves (YN99, Cabaret Cave, Carpark Cave, Twilight Cave, Water Cave and, in the past, Gilgie Cave) were known to contain streams or pools fed by groundwater from the Gnangara mound that contained root mats from tuart trees.

“Cave animals at Yanchep include night fish, gilgies, leeches, microscopic worms, snails and insects and crustaceans,’’ the post said.

“Some of the species appear to be endemic to these cave streams and some are confined to a single cave.’’

“A total of 100 species of fauna have been located in the six caves that contain the root mat community – about a third of these are newly discovered.

“Furthermore, at least six newly discovered species of crustaceans that occur in the community at Yanchep are relicts from when Australia was part of the supercontinent of Gondwana.’’

DBCA said the Environment Minister had endorsed the first threatened ecological community (TEC) list containing 65 threatened ecological communities and it was published in the Government Gazette on May 26.

The listing means that authorisation will now be required from the Environment Minister to damage or destroy (‘modify’) a TEC, or significant penalties may apply.

The first TEC listing was 29 years in the making and has involved many staff of DBCA and its predecessors, committee experts from universities, environmental consultancies, non-government organisations and other government departments who volunteered vast amounts of their time and expertise, as well as a multitude of other stakeholders.

“The TEC listing evolved from humble beginnings when, in 1994, the Commonwealth government provided seed funding for the former Department of Conservation and Land Management’s first project on developing methods to identify and conserve TECs,’’ DBCA said.

“At that time, there were few examples of how TECs, or threatened ecosystems, could be listed anywhere in the world, and the procedures first had to be developed.

This was done with advice from an advisory group comprised of expert ecologists.

“This first committee first met in 1995 and advised on the development of the ranking categories and criteria, nomination forms for listing TECs, and the first TEC database.’’

The current TEC scientific committee (TECSC) was established in 2000 with three members of the preceding advisory committees still on the replacement TECSC that guided and championed the first TEC listing through to completion in 2023.

“These committees tested and applied the categories and criteria for ranking the level of threat to TECs to a huge variety of ecological communities (ecosystems) from across the state that included 44 rare vegetation types, nine invertebrate communities of underground caves and groundwater aquifers, seven assemblages of groundwater fed springs, four communities built by microbes (‘microbialites’), and a faunal assemblage of intertidal flats.

“An informal TEC listing procedure was developed in 2000, with the Environment Minister endorsing the non-statutory listing of TECs in the absence of legislation to support listing TECs in WA.

“A total of 69 TECs were listed through that process (65 extant, and 4 presumed totally destroyed). “The 65 extant TECs were provided with a more formal level of protection when they were listed as environmentally sensitive areas under the Environmental Protection Act 1986 in 2004.

“After many years work in development by a global team of ecologists, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature released categories and criteria for ranking the level of threat to ecosystems in 2014 (IUCN Red List of Ecosystem criteria –IUCN RLE).

“These criteria are now accepted as a global standard.’’

In 2016 Western Australia’s Biodiversity Conservation Act replaced the ageing 1950 Wildlife Conservation Act.

“This new Act enabled the listing and legislative protection for TECs in WA for the first time. Nominations that assessed the 65 informally listed extant TECs against the new IUCN RLE criteria were developed by an expert DBCA team and carefully scrutinised by the TECSC.

“Some stumbling blocks along the way included Covid-19 restrictions that delayed the stakeholder consultation required to complete the TEC listing process.’’

This article appeared on Yanchep News Online on 3 September 2023.