HABITAT DESTRUCTION AND BIODIVERSITY LOSS

 A recent Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) report has highlighted some major problems with the way the health of our biodiversity is assessed and protected from sliding further towards extinction.  In 2023 the addition of 144 animals, plants and ecological communities to the threatened species list was more than in any other year since the list was established.

Among those listed for the first time were the Pink Cockatoo (endangered), the Northern Blue-tongued Skink (critically endangered) and the Jardine River Turtle (critically endangered).

“Scientists nominated many of these species for listing years ago, so 2023’s high number shows the Environment Minister (Tanya Plibersek) and her department are clearing the backlog and making the list better reflect the reality,” said ACF nature campaigner Peta Bulling.

“The problem is the factors driving species onto the endangered list are not being stopped.  In the last 12 months, 10,426 hectares (25,800 acres) of habitat destruction was approved under Australia’s national nature laws.”

She added that this amount of clearing approved was likely to be a fraction of total habitat actually cleared because land clearing in Australia often happens without being assessed under environmental laws.  Along with many others concerned about biodiversity loss, Bulling wants to see the upcoming reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act address habitat destruction which is pushing our biodiversity towards extinction.

Consultation on the EPBC Act reforms commenced last year with experts and key stakeholder groups.  It is expected that draft legislation will be introduced to federal parliament some time this year.

Since the new federal government was elected, Minister Plibersek has made listing decisions on 223 threatened species and eight ecological communities. These included 130 bushfire-affected species and eight bushfire-affected ecosystems.

While habitat clearing is a major driver of biodiversity loss that affects our region, we now have another major environmental problem – the arrival of fire ants – which requires urgent effective action from local, state and federal authorities – including from our local members of parliament – Hogan and Williamson.

-        Leonie Blain

 Published in the "Voices for the Earth" column in The Clarence Valley Independent , January 31, 2024.

 

 

REPAIRING "NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE" ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS

For years there has been criticism of the federal  Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act because of its failure  to protect Australia’s natural environment -  a failure highlighted in a recent report from the Auditor-General.

In commenting on this report, James Trezise, an analyst for the peak environment group the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) said, “This report is a scathing indictment of the Federal Government’s administration of our natural environment law and highlights why we need a stronger law and a new independent regulator.”

“Worryingly for an area of public policy in which commercial interests are constantly trying to influence, the Auditor-General found ‘conflicts of interests are not managed’.”  Trezise referred to the ACF’s concern about the capacity for political interference under the way the Act has been administered.  He referred specifically to the development on an internationally significant wetland at Toondah Harbour in Moreton Bay and the approvals of Adani’s groundwater plan.

Another major criticism related to the deep budget cuts to the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment between 2013 and 2019 which contributed to its poor performance in administering the EPBC Act.

The Act is currently being reviewed by Professor Graeme Samuel.  His interim report , released on Monday July 20, called for fundamental reform of the law.

Samuel says that the Act “does not enable the Commonwealth to play its role in protecting and conserving environmental matters that are important for the nation.  It is not fit to address current or future environmental challenges.”

He said, “The foundation of the report was that there is too much focus on process and not enough on outcomes and that should be changed entirely.”

He confirmed the health of Australia’s natural environment is in dire straits and proposed a number of ways to address this. 

A significant proposal was for the establishment of “an independent compliance and enforcement regulator that is not subject to actual or implied political direction from the Government Minister.” 

 

“The regulator should be responsible for monitoring compliance, enforcement and assurance.  It should be properly resourced and have available to it of full toolkit of powers,” Samuel said.

Unsurprisingly, Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley, immediately ruled out an independent regulator referring to it as an “additional layer of bureaucracy”. 

What she actually means is that the Federal Government wants to continue to exercise political influence to ensure that environmentally-damaging projects are allowed to go ahead if it sees them as being in the short-term economic interest.   If the government gets its way, the EPBC Act will continue to be neutered by politicians and the degradation of our natural environment will escalate.

BOUNCING FORWARD AFTER COVID-19

What do we want our community to look like on the other side of the COVID-19 crisis?  That is a question many people are thinking about - including the CEO of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Kelly O’Shanassy.

“When the time of isolation is behind us,” she said, “I want regional Australians to have fulfilling sustainable jobs.   I want local businesses to be resilient.  I want our children and grandchildren to have a secure future, whether it’s on the land or in town.

“In order to do that, we must recover from COVID-19 in a way that also tackles that other crisis: climate change.

“I reckon this major disruption to our way of life could be a re-set moment to help us build a better Australia.” 

O’Shanassy hopes we won’t “bounce back” into the old way of doing things where climate change impacts worsen - giving us longer and more severe droughts and more devastating bushfires.  She hopes that we will “bounce forward” to a new way where carbon emissions are slashed and we move rapidly towards a clean economy.

She believes that regional Australia is central to this bouncing forward.

One of the measures the government could take to do this is to create new markets and jobs in clean industries.  This will lead to lower electricity prices, and cuts to air and climate pollution.  O’Shanassy points to the example of Tasmania where renewable energy jobs are surging with full-time equivalent employment increasing by more than 11% in the sector last year.

Other measures include funding rural renewal in communities heavily impacted by the recent bushfires, investing in those rural communities facing the biggest disruption from climate change (for example the Latrobe Valley in Victoria and the Hunter Valley in NSW), incentivising farmers to store carbon in soil and communities to plant forests, and shifting government subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy infrastructure.

More detail about the Australian Conservation Foundation’s proposal are given at https://www.acf.org.au/budget_2020_invest_big_to_renew_regions

          

  - Leonie Blain

 This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on May 4 ,  2020.

LATEST AUSTRALIAN STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT REPORT CONCERNS AUSTRALIAN CONSERVATION FOUNDATION

In a recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald[1], Kelly O’Shanassy, CEO of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), commented on the latest national State of the Environment report.

She said  that while there were some positive signs such as improvements to the Murray-Darling Basin through increased environmental flows, the “story is grim”. 

The report points to inadequate funding and a lack of effective national coordinated action which has contributed to the current state of our environment. Federal government spending to protect and restore nature in Australia is at its lowest level in a decade and is expected to decline further.  For every $100 of federal expenditure less than 5 cents reaches conservation programs.

She points out that while government spending on the environment is so small it is “preparing to spend $1 billion of taxpayers’ money to help build Adani’s proposed Carmichael coal mine in Queensland, which, ironically, will be a major source of pollution for decades to come.”

The ACF believes the government needs to increase funding for the environment by at least 400% “if it is to reverse the dramatic decline of Australia’s wildlife, reefs and forests.”

O’Shanassy  points to the economic benefits that a healthy environment brings in sectors such as tourism and agricultural production.

“Nature in Australia is one of the key drawcards for international visitors, worth about $40 billion to the economy based on figures from Ecotourism Australia.”

“Healthy water catchments reduce nutrient loading, salinity and erosion.  Healthy soils increase productivity through better water retention and nutrient cycling.  Increased biodiversity improves native pollinators, which improve yields.  Native species can play a critical role in natural pest control.”

In conclusion O’Shanassy called on political and business leaders to stand up on this issue.

---

[1] “Neglecting nature is a budget burden”, The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, March 8, 2017.

WHO TOOK THE CONSERVATIVES OUT OF CONSERVATION?

 ‘Who took conservatives out of conservation?’ is a headline in the latest issue of Habitat Australia, the magazine published by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF).

It’s a question that’s close to the ACF’s heart. This organisation was established in the mid-1960s at the behest of the Duke of Edinburgh with a grant from the Menzies Government and with Sir Garfield Barwick (Chief Justice of the High Court and previously a minister under Menzies) as president — it was conservative to the core.

The Abbott-Truss Government’s hostility to the environment has been surprising in its breadth. Their targets haven’t just been the carbon tax, renewable energy and curbing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, but also the Tasmanian Wilderness and Great Barrier Reef World Heritage areas, the network of Commonwealth marine reserves, the National Water Commission and the ‘green tape’ of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

It wasn’t always so with Coalition governments.

The EPBC Act was drafted and passed by the Howard Government. Howard proposed the national representative system of marine protected areas in 1998 and set up the National Water Commission in 2004.

The Tasmanian Wilderness and Great Barrier Reef were nominated for World Heritage listing by the Fraser Government, which also ended sand mining on Fraser Island and whale hunting in Australian waters.

At the state level, the original and current National Parks and Wildlife Acts were passed by the Askin Government in NSW which, in 1970, also brought in the Clean Waters Act and the Pollution Control Act.

Nick Greiner brought in the Protection of the Environment Administration Act 1991 which set up the legislative framework for ecologically sustainable development (including the precautionary principle) and replaced Askin’s State Pollution Control Commission with the Environmental Protection Authority.

Care for the environment — and willingness to introduce laws and regulations to protect it — has never been the exclusive territory of left-leaning governments. It is puzzling why the current crop of Liberal-National governments is now disowning and dismantling the legacy of their conservative forebears.

-          J Cavanaugh