The Research & Innovation Team is excited to bring you our next research webinar showcasing leading researchers from the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis (CEBRA) at the University of Melbourne.

CEBRA supports the department’s vital biosecurity activities by providing evidence-based tools, analyses and advice to improve Australia’s biosecurity system. This month we present:

February CEBRA Research Webinar with Dr Terry Walshe from CEBRA

11:00am – 12:00pm, Thursday 24 February 2022

Register for our next monthly CEBRA Research webinar with Dr Terry Walshe, a Research Associate at CEBRA, to discuss “Environmental Biosecurity – Beyond the Matrix”. Terry will discuss how risk management for conservation properties is typically based on rough and ready assessments using a risk matrix combining coarse judgments of likelihood and consequence. Terry will argue that this approach offers a poor basis for funding biosecurity interventions and that the level of public interest in conservation outcomes implies an imperative to do better.

But there are many challenges. Along with the usual difficulties in estimating the probability of entry, establishment and spread, and their consequences, conservation managers:

• need to partner with Traditional Owners in the development of management plans
• need to negotiate the values and priorities of a range of stakeholders, including tourism interests
• often have only a vague sense of what budget might be made available.

CEBRA and the department developed a set of risk-based decision support tools for pre-border biosecurity planning using a case study application at K’gari (Fraser Island), where a community-based partnership – FINIA – sought assistance from the department’s Environmental Biosecurity Office on how to progress improved biosecurity for the island.

Terry will illustrate the main advantages of using the risk-based decision support tools over the risk matrix approach using a subset of pests and pathogens that threaten the internationally recognised values of the World Heritage-listed K’gari.

The department’s research lead for this work, Andrew Pearce, Director, Strategy and Support (Environmental Biosecurity Office), will join us for the Q&A session after Terry’s presentation.

Please note that this forum will be recorded. A link to the recording will be sent to registered attendees.

For all enquiries, please email biosecurity.research@agriculture.gov.au.