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Australian Pest Animal Management Program (APAMP)
The Australian Pest Animal Management Program (APAMP) has been established under the Australian Government's Caring for our Country initiative. APAMP will collaborate with state, territory and local governments, to reduce the damage to agriculture caused by pest animals. The program is aligned with the goals and objectives of the Australian Pest Animal Strategy.
APAMP replaces the National Feral Animal Control Program (NFACP) which ran from 1996-2008 under the Natural Heritage Trust. Examples of previous projects funded under NFACP can be found at Past NFACP Projects.
The 2008-09 funding round of APAMP has now closed. Any future funding rounds will be advertised on this website.
The main objectives of APAMP are to:
- develop integrated, strategic approaches to manage the impacts of nationally significant pest animals
- improve the effectiveness of control techniques and strategies for reducing pest animal impact
- produce guidelines and extension materials for the best practice management of nationally significant pest animals.
The objectives of the program are further outlined below. Please contact the APAMP coordinator for more information.
Background
Vertebrate pests, such as rabbits, foxes and feral goats now make up about ten per cent of Australia's mammal fauna. They have adapted and spread into most of Australia's agricultural systems and natural environments. None have been eradicated, despite considerable effort. With available control techniques, it is unlikely to be technically, economically or socially feasible to eradicate any established, widespread vertebrate pest from the Australian mainland. Therefore the focus of APAMP is on strategic, sustained best practice management of pest animals where they are causing actual rather than perceived damage.
Best practice pest management involves:
1. Managing actual rather than perceived impactsOften impacts have not been quantified. For some situations, APAMP would prefer to support 12-month pilot projects to define: basic pest ecology (for example, relating movements and density to damage); nature and extent of impact; and, the stakeholders involved in the problem. Monitoring agricultural production responses to pest control during the management phase of field projects should provide some quantification of pest animal impacts and the effectiveness of management strategies.
2. Impact-based management rather than pest-based managementThe focus of APAMP is not on removing pest animals as such, but reducing their impact. In some situations there are more technically, economically and socially feasible ways to reduce damage than killing pest animals (for example, pruning parrot-damaged bluegum trees can be more effective than killing parrots). Additionally, the relationship between pest density and resultant damage is not well known and is often not uniform, so reducing pest animals down to a target density may not achieve an expected or proportional reduction in damage. In other situations, pest animals are not causing major damage, or there are more significant causes of damage, so killing them will not achieve the desired improvement in agricultural production or resource/ecosystem condition.
3. Strategic managementManagement should be strategic in terms of:
- management area
- management timing
- long-term strategy rather than one-off management
- combination of control techniques rather than single technique.
Managing pest animals at the local or regional scale reduces problems with pests migrating into treated areas and achieves economies of scale. It is also important to involve all stakeholders in defining management problems and solutions.
5. Commercial use where appropriateCommercial use may improve the economic feasibility of pest management and is a useful management technique if it reduces pest densities down to a level where damage is adequately reduced or if it is used as the first part of a higher level control program.
6. Humane techniques and strategies
APAMP will support the development of more humane pest management techniques and strategies wherever feasible.