How TERN's Threatened Species Index became a National Economic Indicator 

A single number to track the health of a continent's wildlife

The Threatened Species Index (TSX), developed and maintained by TERN under NCRIS, distils more than 25,000 monitoring datasets covering some 400 threatened and near-threatened birds, mammals, plants, frogs and reptiles into a single, robust measure of how Australia's most vulnerable species are faring over time. Modelled on the way a stock market index tracks the pulse of an economy, the TSX gives government, conservation groups and researchers a consistent, comparable way to see whether biodiversity is improving or declining nationally, by state, or by species group.

From conservation tool to national economic indicator

That rigour has earned the TSX a rare distinction: recognition by the Australian Government as one of the nation's top 50 wellbeing and environmental indicators under Treasury's Measuring What Matters framework, and use by the Australian Bureau of Statistics within its environmental-economic accounts. Bringing biodiversity data into the same accounting frameworks used to track GDP and national wealth allows policymakers to weigh environmental condition alongside economic performance - something that was virtually impossible before a nationally consistent species index existed. The TSX now underpins Australia's State of the Environment reporting and is drawn on by more than 200 contributing organisations, from citizen science groups to state agencies.

Why investment in research infrastructure matters

The TSX shows how national research infrastructure can turn scattered, inconsistent monitoring efforts into a single trusted metric fit for the highest levels of government decision-making. Without the data-management, computing and quality-assurance backbone that TERN provides, the thousands of individual survey datasets feeding the index would remain disconnected and difficult to compare. By investing in that infrastructure, Australia now has an early-warning system for biodiversity loss that sits alongside its economic statistics, helping ensure that decisions about protecting the country's threatened plants and animals are guided by evidence rather than guesswork.

Find out more about the Threatened Species Index