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The 822 eucalypt species (Angophora, Corymbia, Eucalyptus) within Australia were assessed using IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. Overall, 193 (23%) eucalypts qualified as threatened and 36 were considered Data Deficient. One hundred and thirty-four threatened species qualified under criterion A2, representing a past and irreversible population decline of >30%. The remainder were narrow-range species with ongoing threats (mostly mining or urbanisation), or naturally rare. Habitat conversion to crops and pastures was the cause of decline for most threatened eucalypts. Threatened species were concentrated where deforestation and high eucalypt richness coincide, especially south-western Western Australia. Corymbia or Angophora species, and relatively few tropical eucalypts are threatened. Fire, timber harvesting and disease were rarely sufficient threats to eucalypts to warrant a threatened status. Sheep grazing limits regeneration in temperate woodlands, but requires further quantification for individual species. Prior to this study, 89 eucalypts were listed as threatened under Australian environmental law. This assessment recommends that 32 of these species be downgraded to Near Threatened or Least Concern. A further 11 species were identified as Data Deficient, while an additional 147 species were proposed for listing as threatened. This systematic assessment of Australian eucalypts emphasises the importance of decline rather than rarity when compared with previous listings, with broad implications for listing long-lived plants in deforested landscapes.

The status of the Australian flora was reviewed by compiling published information on all critically endangered and endangered species listed federally in 2004. Threatening processes were categorised and their contributions to past, present and future declines were assessed. The information was cross-referenced against State agency information and field knowledge. Land clearance for agriculture (grazing and cropping) and urbanization have been the primary causes of range contractions and habitat loss in the past, responsible for the current status of the majority of threatened Australian plants. In the future, land clearance will remain important but new issues are emerging. Many species are now at risk from demographic and environmental uncertainty alone. Threats growing in importance include disease, salinity, invasive species and changed disturbance regimes. Many species are subject to common, landscape-level threats. A key issue to emerge from our analysis is that most species are threatened by a number of interacting factors – threat syndromes. Several future risks may be mitigated effectively by simple, low-cost changes in policy, such as more stringent controls on land clearance, strategic fire management, and firmer control on the importation of plant species. Other factors will require greater effort and new strategies to mitigate, including social and legal initiatives in urban landscapes and broad strategies for pathogens, climate change and other landscape-level processes.

Extensive agricultural development has endangered species diversity in the highly endemic south-western Australian flora. Many relict species with restricted distribution are now on the brink of extinction. Eucalyptus phylacis and E. dolorosa are both known from single locations within pockets of native vegetation surrounded by agricultural land. The development of appropriate conservation strategies required the appraisal of the extent of clonality within both species as well as the definition of species identity for E. phylacis. The use of RAPD analysis revealed contrasting stories for these two threatened species. E. phylacis, for which species identity was successfully established, was shown to be a single clone and as a result, possibly the rarest, largest, potentially oldest mallee eucalypt known. Whereas, despite its isolation, E. dolorosa still retained sufficient genetic variability to enable the production of highly outcrossed seed. Different conservation strategies are suggested for the two species and the importance of understanding basic genetic variability in rare clonal species is discussed.