Northern Quoll Case Study

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The broad vision this project seeks to achieve is the sustainability of the northern quoll and its habitat. The northern quoll was selected based on a Landscape Species Assessment exercise. This exercise displayed two key characteristics: a variety of habitats and biological and cultural significance.

Firstly, the northern quolls occur in a variety of habitats. This species can be found in rocky areas, eucalypt forest and woodlands, rainforests, sandy lowlands and beaches, shrub land, grasslands and desert (Threatened Species Scientific Committee, 2005). This project will limit its area of impact to Kakadu National Park. This is because this park is the largest national park in Australia and one of the largest in the world’s tropics. Also, …show more content…

Although the assessment displayed many threats, this project will address only one causal chain: of the inefficiency of co-management agreement in the park. The contributing factors for this direct threat are first, the lack of revision of the agreement since 1991. The last stage of the co-management agreement inside of Kakadu National park was signed 27 years ago. Although this co-management agreement has been through different stages and revisions, very important aspects of the context have changed since then. It is proposed in this project that a revision is needed to assure that the agreement has both benefits for traditional owners and to wildlife in the park. Secondly, currently, there are conflicting agendas and conflicting definitions of the problem within the participants. This has created for different programs and policies to be created, often in conflict with one another. For example, wide-range poisoning of quolls by traps to kill dingoes implemented by one agency that seeks to exterminate invasive species (such as wild dogs/dingoes). Another example of what different problem definitions can create is the foxes example. An agency can see foxes as the main issue, and the solution is to target foxes with poisoning bait. What happens, then, is numbers of feral cats and rabbits, which are also hunted by foxes, tend to boom once the foxes are gone. So, small marsupials (i.e. quolls) will still be hunted – only by cats instead – and the rabbits will wreak havoc in the landscape, depriving native animals of food and shelter. This connects to the third contributing factor, the multiplicity of agencies, and lack of exchange between them. Because Australia works under the frame of a decentralized government, many agencies and organizations do not communicate with each other or are held accountable. This then creates a very complex social process, which then creates a very

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