Queensland is a unique and special place. It is the most biologically diverse of all Australian states and territories.
It has a thriving agricultural industry that is estimated to be worth $22.10 billion1. It is a world-leading tourist destination with spectacular landscapes, the Great Barrier Reef, and home to the world’s oldest continuing living cultures.
Consistent with worldwide trends, invasive plants and animals are threatening Queensland’s natural environment, native wildlife, its agriculture, cultural heritage, and social wellbeing.
A response to these trends requires urgent and comprehensive action from all stakeholders.
The Queensland Invasive Plants and Animals Strategy 2025–2030 (this strategy) recognises that managing the risks and impacts of invasive plants and animals is occurring in the context of several potentially exacerbating factors. These include, but are not limited to, climate change, land use change, land degradation, biodiversity loss, global trade, and increasing movement of people through travel and migration.
The management of invasive plants and animals is the shared responsibility of landowners, land managers, industry, the community, and all levels of government. Shared responsibility has been made a legal requirement through the general biosecurity obligation under the Biosecurity Act 2014.
The primary responsibility rests with those who deal with biosecurity matter—they must reduce the risks that their activities create. They must take reasonable and practical measures to manage invasive plants and animals.
However, a nil-tenure approach that engages all stakeholders is best practice, particularly for highly mobile species. In this approach, control methods are applied in a cooperative and coordinated manner across land tenures by stakeholders at a landscape scale rather than at a property scale.
This strategy provides Queenslanders with a framework and a set of strategic actions to guide the management and prevention of invasive plants and animals in Queensland.
Importantly, it also details specific stakeholder roles and responsibilities for protecting Queensland from the impacts of invasive plants and animals.
1 daf.qld.gov.au/news-media/campaigns/data-farm/primary-industries
This publication has been compiled by Invasive Plants and Animals, Biosecurity Queensland, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. © State of Queensland, 2024