NORTH EAST NEW SOUTH WALES 12 Biodiversity 12 It’s everyone’s business

What is biodiversity? • Biodiversity provides opportunities for recreation, tourism, scientific research

Biological diversity, or biodiversity is the NOTE and education. NOTE variety of all living organisms, including all species. It can be defined as ‘the variety of • Biodiversity is a source of cultural life forms, the different plants, animals and identity for many Australians, micro-organisms, the genes they contain, and particularly for Aboriginal and Torres the ecosystems they form’. The concept Strait Islander people. emphasises the dynamic interrelationships • There is a growing community occurring in the biological world in which recognition of the intrinsic values of humans now play an integral management biodiversity, such as the right of all role and is usually considered at three species to exist regardless of their value levels. to humans. Genetic diversity is the variety of genetic Financial benefits of the value of information contained in all individual biodiversity are difficult to estimate, but plants, animals and micro-organisms. can be described both as the economic Species diversity is the variety of species benefits of biodiversity, and the costs of not on earth. Species diversity is usually a protecting biodiversity. measure of the number of species (richness) At the broadest scale, the short term and their relative abundances for a given economic benefits of ecosystem services area at a given point in time. have been calculated at US$22 trillion Ecosystem diversity is the variety of annually. This is almost twice the global habitats, biotic communities and ecological gross national product. Closer to home, processes. An ecosystem consists of plant, examples of financial estimates include: animal, fungal and micro-organism • The contribution of koalas to the communities and the associated non-living tourism industry is estimated at $1.1 environment interacting as an ecological billion per year, or around 9,000 jobs, unit. Ecosystem diversity has two inter- • Whale-watching is a $50 million a year related components: the diversity of industry in Australia, and communities of species and the diversity of interactions between community members • The annual economic value of Dorrigo (called processes). National Park is $5.4 million, contributing 8.4% of regional Why is biodiversity important? employment. Biodiversity values are important because: The cost of not protecting biodiversity is likely to be substantial, and in many cases • At the most fundamental level, the loss of biodiversity will be irreversible. biodiversity provides the basis for all life on The impacts of failing to maintain healthy, earth, ensuring clean air and water, fertile functioning ecosystems are already obvious soils and healthy, functioning ecosystems in many areas, for example: necessary to maintain essential ecosystem services such as soil formation and • Approximately 72% of NSW is affected nutrient storage and cycling. by some form of land degradation; • Biodiversity provides all of our food and • Soil structure decline is costing the raw materials for a wide range of Australian farmers around $200 million products, for example clothing and annually; medicinal goods. Natural Resource Management Advisory Series: Natural Resource Management Advisory Series: NORTH EAST NEW SOUTH WALES

• The cost to Australia of lost agricultural modified dramatically. In NSW the scale of production, decreased water quality biodiversity loss has been substantial. Over and control measures due to weeds is 80 species of plants and animals are extinct estimated at $3.3 billion per annum; in this State, and more than 800 species are considered either endangered or • 20,000 farms and 2 million hectares of vulnerable. land are affected by salinity in Australia; and The loss of biodiversity can be directly linked to the extent of clearing and • Between 1993 and 2003 the number of modification of native vegetation and animals in Australia listed as accelerates at a sliding scale as vegetation threatened rose by 40%. loss and frequency of disturbance increases. Conserving biodiversity, therefore, relies What biodiversity do we have? heavily on the protection of native vegetation across the whole landscape. This Australia is one of only 12 ‘megadiverse’ includes protection of all vegetation types countries and its native biodiversity is of across all landforms (i.e. flood plains to the global significance. It is estimated that mountains) as well as protecting vegetation there are more than one million species of corridors. plants and animals in Australia. Of particular significance is the high Biodiversity is therefore a responsibility of us percentage of Australian species found only all. in Australia (45% of birds, 84% of mammals and 89% of reptiles). References and Further Reading Australia also has a great diversity of • Commonwealth of Australia (1996), The ecosystem types, ranging from alpine to National Strategy for the Conservation of coastal, estuarine, wetland, arid and semi- Australia’s Biological Diversity, Canberra, arid, woodland, grassland and forest DEST. landscapes. • Department of the Environment, Sport Biodiversity on the north coast of NSW is and Territories (1993), Biodiversity and its amongst the highest of any areas in value, Canberra, DEST. Australia, with a very high diversity of • NSW National Parks and Wildlife woody vegetation types, including Service (1999), NSW Biodiversity rainforests, wetlands and old growth Strategy, Hurstville, NPWS. forests. The area also contains the largest • Smith P L and Sivertsen D (2001), number of rare, endangered and over- Native Vegetation Targets – Background cleared forest ecosystems and a very high Paper A – Landscape Composition for the richness of plant and animal species. It also Maintenance of Biodiversity Values to has the largest number of threatened plant Production-Oriented Landscapes. DLWC, and animal species in NSW. Sydney. Threats to biodiversity • DEC website: www.environment.nsw.gov.au Land clearing and degradation are the single biggest threat to biodiversity. Vegetation clearing destroys, fragments or Further Information otherwise modifies habitats. Such activities contribute to further loss of biodiversity Environment Protection and Regulation Division North East Branch through accelerated land and water Department of Environment and Conservation degradation. Over the past 200 years of 24 Moonee Street European settlement, the natural COFFS HARBOUR NSW 2450 environment of Australia has been Phone: 6651 5946 August 2004