Australia’s Virtual Herbarium

1. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Unlocking Australia’s plant biodiversity Information

2. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Australia’s biodiversity is at risk from inappropriate land management practices and historical ignorance of the implications. We know a lot about what not to do, but redressing the damage, and managing better for the future, requires sound information about our biodiversity - what was here, and where it lived.

3. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Information on plant identity and location is derived from herbarium specimen records. These records are the building blocks for plant taxonomy and classification.

4. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Australia’s Virtual Herbarium will provide access to the combined information on each individual herbarium specimen in Australia’s major herbaria.

5. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium The internet will provide quicker and easier access and use, and wider availability. Access is being made progressively available on the Internet. The AVH is unique and a world first

6. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium The AVH is a collaborative project of the State, Commonwealth and Territory herbaria.It is being developed under the auspices of the Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), representing the major Australian herbarium collections.Each herbarium retains custodianship and is responsible for management of its own data as part of the national distributed database.

7. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Contribution of specimen data by major herbarium

8. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Applications and benefits include: • easy and quick access to authoritative plant information; • mapping geographic distribution of plants; • location and mapping of rare and threatened species; • historical and baseline information for revegetation programs; • assist with selection of suitable and adequate conservation reserves; • better informed environmental planning;

9. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Potential users include: • farmers • Landcare groups • revegetation groups • Greening Australia • natural resource managers • government agencies • local government • indigenous communities • schools and educational institutions • mining industry

10. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium In 1999, the Harden Murrumburrah Landcare Group approached the Australian National Herbarium for help with revegetating their land with the original native plants of the region. Case Study 1907 With only 2.8 percent of the original native vegetation remaining from widespread landclearing in the Harden Shire, landholders had to largely guess what once grew there.

11. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Herbarium records were searched to compile a list of all the plants collected from the Harden region since 1770. The records also provided information on soils and associated species. Local landholders and those with specialised knowledge then added to this pool of data, eg how to propagate and where to plant them. This data is available through the web to the Landcare group to plan their revegetation work.

12. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium A critical first step in building the AVH is to capture and load the information contained in Australia’s six million herbarium specimens in a standard format within the next five years

13. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium The databasing task - 3.3 million specimens

14. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium

15. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium This task is calculated to cost $10 million. Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments agreed in 2001 to contribute $7,830,000 on the basis that a further $2,000,000 would be raised from the private sector over the next five years to complete the project. The AVH Trust was established in late 2001 to coordinate the fund raising for this project.

16. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Trust The AVH Trust is registered and donations are tax-deductible. Environment Australia is acting as the agent for receipt and disbursement of funds, both Commonwealth and private sector, to the individual herbaria on advice and agreement from CHAH.

17. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Trust Supporting the AVH Trust offers the opportunity to participate in: • a collaborative national project supported by the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments and involving many of Australia’s leading scientific institutions; • an ethical and ‘green’ initiative; • internationally innovative technology - a world-first; • encouraging discovery and understanding of the plant world; • unlocking Australia’s plant biodiversity information for all users

18. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Trust Private financial supporters will be acknowledged appropriately on the AVH website and in any other promotional or educational material about the AVH.

19. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Trust Trustees: Peter Cochrane, Director of National Parks, Environment Australia (Chair) Margaret Ross, Chair John T Reid Charitable Trust Ian Blackburne, Chair Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney Trust Allan Holmes, Chief Executive, Department for Environment and Heritage, South Australia Executive Officer: Helen Halliday, Environment Australia

20. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Herbaria associated with the AVH are located in every capital city of Australia.To arrange an inspection to discover more about their relevance to conservation and land management please contact the relevant Director: Phone 08 8222 9326 07 3896 9325 02 6246 5113 08 8922 0809 03 6226 2635 03 9252 2300 08 9334 0500 02 9231 8113 City Adelaide Brisbane Canberra Darwin Hobart Melbourne Perth Sydney Director Dr Laurie Haegi Dr Gordon Guymer Dr Judy West Dr Greg Leach Dr Gintaras Kantvilas Professor Jim Ross Dr Neville Marchant Dr Tim Entwisle Email haegi.laurie@saugov.sa.gov.au gordon.guymer@env.qld.gov.au judy.west@csiro.au greg.leach@nt.gov.au gkantvilas@tmag.tas.gov.au jim.ross@rbg.vic.gov.au nevillem@calm.wa.gov.au tim.entwisle@rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au

21. Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Unlocking Australia’s plant biodiversity Information