To: The Honourable Jeremy Rockliff MP, Premier of Tasmania and The Honourable Roger Jaensch MP, Minister for Arts

Serious concerns about reported job losses at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, including the Tasmanian Herbarium

Taxonomy Australia (www.taxonomyaustralia.org.au) is Australia's peak national body for taxonomy and biosystematics, with a Steering Committee drawn from organisations, networks, and distinguished individual scientists representative of the sector. Together, these organisations and networks represent around 1,000 scientists and support staff across Australia conducting biodiscovery research in museums and herbaria, universities, the CSIRO, and other government agencies including departments of environment, primary industries and agriculture.

I am writing to you on behalf of the Steering Committee of Taxonomy Australia to express our serious concerns about the reported changes to the staffing of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, including the Tasmanian Herbarium.

These are long-established, key institutions that carry out fundamental scientific and cultural roles. In particular, the loss of senior and highly experienced scientists will compromise the ability of the institutions to deliver vital services across the naming, documentation, identification, and understanding of the plants, animals, and fungi of Tasmania.

Experts whose positions are reported as under threat are world-class and their expertise is drawn on not only in Tasmania but as part of a national and global networks of scientists. Indeed, some current staff of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery reported as being made redundant, such as Dr Gintaras Kantvilas at the Tasmanian Herbarium, are among only a few in Australia in their field.

Management of the more than one million specimens under the stewardship of TMAG will also be significantly hindered. In addition, reduced scientific capacity at TMAG compromises its ability to access competitive funding, risking a loss of access to Commonwealth and other funding programs.

We point to cost-benefit analyses of investments in the biosystematics and natural history collections sectors that demonstrate clear economic benefits. In particular, a report by Deloitte Access Economics on the Cost–benefit analysis of a mission to discover and document Australia's species shows that significant benefits accrue across diverse practical aspects such as biosecurity, quarantine, forensics, environmental assessment, drug discovery, and the bioeconomy — with returns of 8 to 35 times for every dollar invested.

We urge you to reconsider the reported cuts in the light of the significance of the positions at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery to the people and economy of Tasmania and beyond.

Yours Sincerely

Dr Tom May (Director), on behalf of Taxonomy Australia

Tom May
Senior Principal Research Scientist (Mycology)
Research
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria