NATURAL VICTORIA Conservation Priorities for Victoria’s Natural Heritage
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW 2014 Public Summary Victorian National Parks Association An independent, non-profit, membership-based group, VNPA exists to protect Victoria’s unique natural environment and biodiversity through the establishment and effective management of national parks, including marine national parks, conservation reserves and other measures. VNPA works by facilitating strategic campaigns and education programs, developing policies, conducting hands-on conservation work, and by running bushwalking and outdoor activity programs which promote the care and enjoyment of Victoria’s natural heritage. © Published by the Victorian National Parks Association July 2014. Licensed CC BY 3.0 AU http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/au/ Acknowledgements The preparation of the VNPA Nature Conservation Review 2014 began in 2008 and is the product of the work and expertise of many people over a long period. Special thanks go to Carol Booth for the text and research and Andrew Cox as project manager and for research, analysis and maps. Thank you also to Megan Clinton, who coordinated the initial work in 2008- 2009 and John Sampson for the design and layout of the public summary. VNPA is very grateful to the authors of the technical reports that informed the review, to the expert reference group that guided the review and its recommendations and to the many people who generously assisted by providing input and feedback. A full list of these contributors is provided at the front of the full report (available on VNPA’s website). The VNPA Nature Conservation Review 2014 was generously supported by The Dara Foundation. Traditional Owners The Victorian National Parks Association acknowledges the many Traditional Owners of Victoria’s natural areas. Aboriginal people occupied Victoria for tens of thousands of years before their communities were decimated by European occupation. This fourth VNPA Nature Conservation Review 2014 acknowledges the long history of Indigenous occupation, and respects the ongoing roles and responsibilities of Victoria’s Traditional Owners in caring for country. The review concentrates on the period since European occupation. Photos & Maps Cover: Red-capped Plovers, Wayne Butterworth (Creative Commons Licence - flickr.com/photos/frankzed/); The Alps, Paul Sinclair; Goulburn Rapids, Alan Lam (Creative Commons Licence - flickr.com/photos/alanandanders/); Victorian grasslands, Michael Williams - It’s a Wildlife; Old Wives, David Bryant. Chapter headings: Marine & Coastal Ecosystems - Old Wives, Dave Bryant; Terrestrial Ecosystems - River Red Gum, David Neilson; Freshwater Ecosystems, Alan Lam, Creative Commons Licence (flickr.com/photos/alanandanders); Environmental Governance - Snow Gum, Dargo High Plains, Alpine National Park, Phil Ingamells. Maps: Production and analysis: VNPA. Data sources: Department of Environment and Primary Industries; Trust for Nature. Disclaimer VNPA is responsible for the content of the Nature Conservation Review 2014 including text, diagrams and recommendations. To the extent permitted by law, VNPA disclaims all liability in connection with any loss and/or damage, arising out of or in connection with the use of this report. Information is current at April 2014. VNPA has endeavoured to verify and acknowledge all sources, however please contact VNPA if any errors or omissions are identified.
2 | | VICTORIAN VICTORIAN NATIONAL NATIONAL PARKS PARKS ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION NATURAL VICTORIA Conservation Priorities for Victoria’s Natural Heritage
CONTENTS FOREWORD ...... P5
SETTING THE SCENE ...... P8
MARINE & COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS ...... P14
TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS ...... P20
FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS ...... P32
ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE ...... P40
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Booth, Carol, author. Title: Natural Victoria - conservation priorities for Victoria’s natural heritage: nature conservation review public summary / Carol Booth, Andrew Cox. ISBN: 9781875100330 (paperback) Subjects: Conservation of natural resources--Victoria. National parks and reserves--Victoria. Other Authors / Contributors: Cox, Andrew, author. Victorian National Parks Association, issuing body. Dewey Number: 333.7809945
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW | 3 Narrow-leaf Peppermint, Wombat State Forest. Photo courtesy Tibor Hegedis, Wombat Forestcare
4 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION FOREWORD
hat an amazing place we to manage these challenges. There live in! Deserts, grasslands, is no doubt that, while Victoria has Wheathlands, dry forests, tall made progress since the first nature wet forests, alpine meadows, reefs Matt Ruchel conservation review in 1971, our and seagrass meadows are but VNPA Executive Director current system of environmental some of the hundreds of beautiful stewardship is failing and we still and diverse ecosystems of which have a huge amount of work to Victorians are custodians. The of the laws, rules, institutions and do. To address the gaps and flaws coastline is dramatic and we have programs aimed at managing our in this system, we have made 163 the highest density of waterways on impacts on the environment. recommendations, some detailed, mainland Australia. some big picture, focused primarily This review starts with an historical VNPA Nature Conservation at the state level. Our aim is to perspective, for many of today’s encourage debate and action. Review 2014 draws on scientific, problems are legacies of the past. government and community sources This is not to lay blame, but to As a community-based organisation, to document the values of our recognise that conserving Victoria’s the VNPA has been a voice for natural heritage and the threats. natural heritage is not just about nature in Victoria for over 60 years. It analyses conservation gaps and managing the impacts of what This report was a major undertaking, priorities and, most importantly, we do now, but also the dramatic and could not have been completed proposes thoughtful solutions impacts ‘European’ settlement have without the generous support of to many of our most pressing had in the past. This ecological debt the Dara Foundation and our many problems. is profound in Victoria and one we members and supporters. It has Initiated in 2008, this report builds need to address, particularly in the also benefited from many hours on previous nature conservation face of a changing climate, if future of volunteer input from scientists, reviews, undertaken by the VNPA generations are to enjoy the bush as community members and others. As in 1971, 1987 and 2001. Compared we do. with previous reviews it will guide to these earlier reviews, this report Importantly, the report dedicates our work, and hopefully the work of is broader in scope and more a whole chapter to environmental others, for at least the next decade. detailed. It is a reflection of how far governance: the system of laws, we have come in understanding the implementation mechanisms, Matt Ruchel complexity of our natural heritage, accountability regimes, and Executive Director and it also highlights the complexity institutional arrangements needed Victorian National Parks Association
There is no doubt that, while Victoria has made progress since the first nature conservation review in 1971, our current system of environmental stewardship is failing and we still have a huge ‘amount of work to do.
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW ABOUT THE REVIEW | 5 ABOUT THE REVIEW
his is the fourth nature biological poverty and ecological • identify priority areas for nature conservation review by the dysfunction. conservation and national parks Victorian National Parks T For this fourth review, VNPA Association (VNPA). When the first • review threatening processes and review was published 42 years ago, commissioned seven expert reviews identify reforms to improve nature just 1.2% of Victoria’s land area was of Victoria’s environmental history conservation in Victoria. protected (to a limited extent), there and conservation issues in marine, After a brief outline of Victoria’s were no marine protected areas, the coastal, terrestrial and freshwater management budget for national ecosystems. This report synthesises environmental history and major parks was $141,000, and little was those reviews, supplemented by trends and drivers of environmental known about the state’s biodiversity. information from a wide range change, this summary focuses of other publications, and with on values, conservation gaps and We know a great deal more now priorities, and future recommended (although still surprisingly little about recommendations developed by a directions for marine and coastal, many aspects of biodiversity such as VNPA reference group. The focus invertebrates), and about 5% of state of reform is primarily the state terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. waters and 14% of Victoria’s land government. It concludes with analysis of the flaws in environmental governance area are protected in the national The objectives are to: park estate. But pressures on nature that underpin Victoria’s failure to have also grown, far exceeding • review new information, knowledge arrest environmental decline, and a the progress made, and on current and approaches to nature summary of proposed reforms. trajectories they condemn our seas, conservation and their applicability lands and fresh waters to growing to Victoria
6 | | VICTORIAN VICTORIAN NATIONAL NATIONAL PARKS PARKS ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION Short-headed Seahorse. Photo John Gaskell
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW FOREWORD | 7 SETTING THE SCENE
A short environmental history
nderstanding the Victorian environment requires Uknowledge of its past and how it has been shaped by humans over more than 40,000 years of habitation. The following brief history focuses only on the short and turbulent period since European colonisation, less than 1% of the duration of Aboriginal settlement.
European colonisation, 1800-1970 1800s–1840s sealing and whaling: The discovery of large fur seal colonies in the late 1700s brought sealers from Sydney and Van Diemen’s Land to exploit the seals’ fur and oils. But the industry drove itself to extinction by the 1830s, after almost exterminating fur seal populations. A similar pattern was followed by the whaling industry, which killed right whales migrating each winter from Antarctica. The industry ceased to operate from Victorian stations in the 1840s after whale populations crashed. 1834–1851 pastoral settlement: Sheep grazing became the major industry in eastern Australia in the 1830s and 1840s due to demand from British textile industries. By mid-century, sheep and cattle were grazing over much of central and western Victoria. Early pastoralists regularly burned the land to clear it Looking from Pillar Point across Norman Bay towards Wilsons Promontory’s Mt Oberon. Pillar Point of scrub and promote fresh grasses. was proposed as the site for a large ‘chalet’ in the early 1960s. Degradation soon became apparent. The Port Phillip district gained dammed and diverted, arsenic- clearing. With arable land being a population of nearly 100,000 Europeans. contaminated tailings accumulated, converted to crops, pastoralism was and vast woodlands were stripped pushed into drier areas. Harmful new 1851–1870 the gold era: Days after for timber for mining from deep plants and animals were introduced, Victoria became a separate colony in shafts. Concern about timber losses including blackberries, foxes and 1851 gold was discovered, triggering drove the first efforts at forest rabbits. Manufacturing industries a great rush. Gold took over from wool as the principal export industry, conservation in the 1860s, and were established, and Australia’s the state’s population surged in close to 400,000 hectares of timber first large dam was built to service 20 years to nearly 750,000, and reserves and state forests were set Melbourne. Victoria became one of the world’s aside by 1874. Because of increased wealthiest places. But it was at great demand for food, agriculture environmental cost as creeks were expanded, also leading to large-scale
8 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Philip Crosbie Morrison, VNPA’s first President and first Director of National Parks, (left) with members of the Mt Buffalo National Park’s committee of management, 1957. Photo courtesy DSE Historic Places
1870–1901 selection laws, at Fern Tree Gully in 1882, and Mount protection and bushwalking became agriculture and marvellous Buffalo and Wilsons Promontory in popular, naturalist and bushwalking Melbourne: Under a series of 1898. clubs lobbied the government to preserve wilderness areas, and were selection laws in the 1860s to 1880s, 1901–1945: closer settlement, instrumental in the establishment of land used for grazing was subdivided irrigation, forestry: Under various national parks. for small farms. By 1900, almost settlement schemes, large areas half of Victoria’s land had been continued to be cleared. There were 1945–1970 prosperity, technology privatised and millions of hectares great efforts to develop irrigation, and environmentalism: The boom had been cleared. But fragile soils, leading to allocation of more water period after World War 2 brought low fertility and an irregular climate than was available, and the area more degradation, but also a growing made survival tenuous, and many under crops more than doubled, to movement for environmental farmers were ruined in the ‘federation 3.8 million hectares by 1931. The protection. Large-scale immigration drought’ (1895–1902). Exacerbating 1930s brought massive dust storms and a high birth rate pushed the the degradation was a great rabbit due to large-scale clearing, rabbit Victorian population to 3.5 million plague. With irrigation promoted plagues and damaged soils. As by 1971. Agriculture intensified, with as the solution for a dry climate, Melbourne‘s population exceeded more soldier settlement schemes, the state government took control 1 million, timber cutters worked new technologies such as bulldozers of most waters, and the Goulburn their way into surrounding hills and chainsaws, fertilisers and the (Eildon) dam was built. There was and mountains. The exploitation damming or diversion of most of the also large-scale drainage of wetlands. of brown coal as a cheap energy state’s rivers. A housing boom and Victoria became increasingly urban, source enabled Victoria to maintain woodchip exports drove increasing Melbourne reaching a population of its position as a major industrial exploitation of forests. This led half a million. Known as ‘Marvellous and manufacturing centre. But to the establishment in 1944 of Melbourne’, it also earned the mounting concerns about the scale a professional organisation, the nickname of ‘Smellbourne’ due to of exploitation stimulated some Save the Forests Campaign, which industrial and human wastes pouring conservation advocacy, which led to became the Natural Resources into open drains and rivers. Tower Hill the establishment of timber reserves, Conservation League of Victoria. became Victoria’s first conservation to provide for future timber use or In 1952 the Victorian National reserve in 1866 and others followed to protect water catchments. As bird Parks Association was created by
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW SETTING THE SCENE | 9 Victoria’s faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s Possum. Photo Steve Kuiter
a federation of organisations, and wildlife. The National Parks Act, review, by Doug Frood and Malcolm it led advocacy resulting in a 1956 which established a National Parks Calder, assessed the adequacy of the National Parks Act that more clearly Authority, was only 15 years old. reserve system and identified species defined and protected national Prior to that, most national parks and and communities in need of further parks, and established a state nature reserves were managed by protection. By this time, the Land government agency to manage them. local committees, which often had Conservation Council had completed Probably the single most important to lease them for timber cutting and the first round of regional studies and trigger in the rise of environmental grazing to finance management. To made over 4000 recommendations consciousness in Victoria was the assess the adequacy of the reserve for the reservation of public land for successful campaign in the late system, Frankenberg compiled different purposes. Most high priority 1960s to save the Little Desert from the first systematic description of areas identified in the 1971 review subdivision for farms. It led to the vegetation communities in Victoria, had been protected in national parks. 1970 establishment of the Land listing 62 ‘vegetational alliances’ and Frood and Calder described major Conservation Council (now the recording their distribution. About land uses and the extent of alteration Victorian Environmental Assessment 40% were assessed as reasonably well in each of Victoria’s vegetation Council) to carry out investigations protected, while 27% required ‘urgent provinces. They estimated that about on the best use of public lands, measures’. Frankenberg warned 60% of the state had been cleared, a which resulted in the declaration of that it could be difficult to locate third of wetlands had been drained, many more national parks and other ‘relatively undamaged examples’ and close to 80% of rivers and protected areas. of some communities, especially wetlands had been much modified. grasslands. She compiled the first They reviewed major management state list of flora and vertebrate fauna issues such as fire regimes, timber VNPA nature conservation and their likely conservation status, harvesting, grazing, introduced reviews, 1971-2001 and found that 39% of native plants species and disturbance factors. The were not recorded in any reserve. issues and dilemmas they discussed The three previous reviews – in Highlighted threats included fire, still largely apply today. Lowland 1971, 1987 and 2001 – tell the fertilisers, invasive species, pollution, grasslands, grassy woodlands, mallee more recent history of European spear fishing, river improvement woodlands, saltbush shrublands, impacts on Victoria’s environment, schemes, dams and grazing in alpine wetlands and riparian communities and are also themselves part of that areas. The review recommended the were in urgent need of conservation, history because of their influence on establishment of large reserves in they said. conservation reforms. 11 regions and eight multiple-use Nature Conservation Review national parks, the conservation of 11 Nature Conservation in Victoria: Victoria 2001: The aim of the other areas and extensions to eight A Survey (1971): At the time of the third review, by Barry Traill and national parks. It also advocated the first review by Judith Frankenberg, Christine Porter, was to identify establishment of marine reserves, only 1.2% of Victoria’s land area gaps in the reserve system and particularly in coastal waters. was in protected areas, and little conservation policies and programs, was known of their values or the Nature Conservation in Victoria: and recommend reforms to slow status or biology of the state’s Study Report (1987): The second and reverse biodiversity losses.
10 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Adapting to climate change will surely be Victoria’s greatest ‘challenge in the near-term future.
Clearing controls on private land, introduced in 1989, had reduced Growth of Victoria’s terrestrial national park estate, losses from about 15,000 hectares 1956-2013 (millions of hectares) to 3000 hectares annually. But despite this and many other 2013 new measures such as the 1988 2008 Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, vegetation mapping and catchment 2003 management planning, Traill and 1998 Porter concluded that extinction 1993 processes were continuing largely 1988 unabated. Less than a fifth of ecological vegetation classes were 1983 adequately protected and more than 1978 half were threatened or extinct. High 1973 priority recommendations were to 1968 protect all vegetation remnants in highly fragmented landscapes and 1963 establish protected areas for south- 1956 western Victoria, riverine forests and woodlands, the Strzelecki Ranges, 0 1 2 3 and box–ironbark woodlands and forests. Action was needed to address invasive species and climate change threats and impacts on freshwater have been reversed or abandoned, systems. Only 600 hectares of majority of recommendations from the 2001 review have not yet been including a 2009 white paper for Victoria’s marine waters were protecting biodiversity under climate then protected. The Environment adopted, some important progress has been made: change, completed at the end of Conservation Council (successor of a four-year process (Securing Our the Land Conservation Council) had • regulatory and policy reforms Future: A White Paper for Land and developed draft recommendations to reduce clearing (but clearing Biodiversity at a Time of Climate for a system of protected areas that is expected to rise again with Change). Controls on land clearing, Traill and Porter recommended the 2013 weakening of these forestry, firewood collection and the VNPA support in principle. regulations) planning have been weakened, and But they criticised the process as • 13 marine national parks and national parks are being opened overly influenced by economic sanctuaries, protecting 5.3% of to damaging exploitation. The considerations and insufficient to state waters government reneged on creating protect variation within bioregions. Murray River Park in favour of They recommended that 20% • new national parks, including to allowing ongoing cattle grazing. of each major marine habitat be protect box-ironbark woodlands, protected within a minimum of two red gum woodlands, East national parks in each bioregion, with Gippsland forests, grasslands and integrated coastal zone management the Otways. and more funding for management. However, since the 2010 state Progress since 2001: Although the election, many environmental reforms
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW SETTING THE SCENE | 11 Close to 60% of Victoria’s land area is used for agriculture. Of that about 80% has been cleared. Photo Yasmin Kelsall Drivers and trends
here are many continuities in have been this century. The extremes in the urban fringes. The impacts this nature conservation review of recent times are consistent with of a burgeoning population are Twith the findings of the three climate change, and some patterns exacerbated by levels of consumption previous reviews. Victoria is still of change can only be explained by that are also increasing. far from having a comprehensive, factoring in anthropogenic warming. Land-use intensification: The adequate and representative With the global failure to arrest majority of land in Victoria, and national park and conservation greenhouse gas emissions – Victoria much of the sea as well, is subjected system, and most major threats to among the world’s worst with its to intense human exploitation. A nature identified in past reviews, heavy use of fossil fuels – and major driver of change is increasing many initiated in the early days of continued warming inevitable, intensification of land-use, primarily settlement, are still very much with there needs to be a concerted for agriculture, which involves us – habitat loss and degradation, effort to optimise the resilience of simplifying habitats and increasing invasive species, harmful fire regimes, ecological and human communities inputs of water, fertilisers and over-grazing, modified water flows and their potential for adaptation. pesticides. In Victoria, it has included and over-exploitation of natural Mitigating other threats to nature the conversion of grazing lands to resources. Several have intensified, and expanding the national park and crops, the planting of ‘improved’ and the speed, magnitude and conservation system have become pastures (using introduced plants types of change are increasing. As even more important. Adapting and applying fertiliser), the use of well as dealing with the legacies of to climate change will surely be new technologies such as centre a destructive past, Victorians must Victoria’s greatest challenge in the pivot irrigation (for which paddock prepare for a more difficult future. near-term future. trees and small buloke remnants Major drivers and trends – particularly are removed) and basalt rock rapid climate change, a growing Population growth: Victoria’s crushing on the Victorian Volcanic population and intensifying land uses burgeoning human population is Plains. Declining terms of trade – increase the urgency of reforms to the driver of many threats. Precious for agriculture and aspirations to strengthen protections for nature. habitat remnants are being bulldozed increase Australia’s food exports are for urban expansion or paved for Climate change: Already significantly likely to drive further intensification. roads. More people are emitting affecting life in Victoria, high levels of On the other hand, some former more greenhouse gases, consuming atmospheric greenhouse gases will agricultural lands are being used more natural resources (eg water drive multiple cascading changes – in for other purposes, including new and firewood) and introducing more temperature and rainfall patterns, types of production (such as timber invasive species. Victorians consume extreme weather events, sea level rise plantations), lifestyle properties and several times their equitable share and ocean acidity – and exacerbate nature conservation and restoration. of planetary resources. At the many other threats, particularly same time, a more indoor lifestyle Close to 60% of Victoria’s land area, severe fire events and invasive is severing many Victorians from about 13 million hectares, is used for species. Since the 2001 nature nature, undermining their health agriculture and about 80% of this conservation review, Victorians have and wellbeing as well as interest in area has been cleared. Conventional experienced the longest, hottest conservation. farming practices – clearing, and driest period since European cultivation, irrigation, grazing, colonisation, and catastrophic fires. Victoria’s population has grown by spraying, fertilising – have caused Fourteen of the past 17 years have almost a million over the past decade, the greatest ecological damage recorded below-average rainfall and reaching 5.8 million in 2013. By mid- in Victoria, and any intensification every year has been warmer than century it is predicted to reach 8.7 of these practices is likely to have the 1961-1990 mean. Half of the 10 million, which will add enormously to further conservation consequences. hottest years recorded in Victoria pressures on biodiversity, particularly
12 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Victoria’s National Park and Conservation System
National park and conservation system Land tenure National parks and reserves Public land Marine national parks and sanctuaries Private land Trust for Nature reserves Trust for Nature covenants (locality)
Victoria’s national park and conservation system
he greatest progress in Victorian Marine: National Park Estate Number Area (hectares) Percentage of the state conservation has come from Taccording public lands and Marine national parks 13 52,241 5.2 waters a high level of conservation Marine sanctuaries 11 864 0.1 security in the national park estate. Although it is fairly extensive, this Terrestrial: National Park Estate Number Area (hectares) Percentage of the state estate is far from comprehensive, adequate and representative, mainly National parks 45 2,901,284 12.8 because of the early privatisation State parks 26 157,825 0.7 of land in the most productive Wilderness parks 3 200,699 0.9 landscapes for agriculture. Reference areas (1) 54 25,392 0.1 There are many public land Subtotal 128 3,274,528 14.4 and marine tenures that imply management for conservation, but Terrestrial: Other Conservation Number Area (hectares) Percentage of the state only properties listed in schedules 2, Properties 2A, 2B, 7 and 8 of the National Parks Act or as reference areas under the Public: eg nature conservation 2,775 526,041 2.3 reserves Reference Areas Act have a high level of protection from most forms of Private: Conservation Trust Act 1,330 93,456 0.4 properties exploitation and strong requirements for conservation management. In Subtotal >4,000 595,033 2.7 this report, the ‘national park estate’ refers only to this category of highest Marine and Terrestrial: Total Number Area (hectares) Percentage of the state National Park and Conservation security protection. It covers about System 14% of Victoria’s land area and 5% of state marine waters. Terrestrial total >4,000 3,901,941 17.2 Marine total 24 53,776 5.3 A second tier of protected areas, also Sources: Federal Department of the Environment (CAPAD 2012), Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries (Public Land Manage- part of what is referred to here as ment spatial data 2013), Trust for Nature (2014). Note: (1) There are additional reference areas that overlap with other protected area categories. the ‘national park and conservation system’, includes properties in and other forms of protection under security or permanence or do schedule 3 of the National Parks Act, the Victorian Conservation Trust Act. not require a sufficient focus on certain categories under the Crown They cover about 3% of the state. conservation management to be Lands (Reserves) Act and Wildlife Act, counted here as genuinely protected. and private properties with covenants Other tenure types lack sufficient
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW SETTING THE SCENE | 13 MARINE & COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS
Values
he wild beauty of Victoria’s sandflats and mudflats merging with shoreline to 500 metres inland in southern edge draws millions beaches, sand dunes, cliffs and shore the national park and conservation Tof visitors each year – to stroll platforms on Victoria’s coastline system. In 1881, the Victorian on beaches and peer into rock pools, provide many different habitats for government had shown great to watch seabirds riding coastal coastal plants and animals, and are foresight by reserving a narrow breezes and shorebirds probing sand strongholds for shorebirds. strip of crown land along almost the and mud for prey to fuel up for their entire coast, 96% of which remains flight to the northern hemisphere, Australia’s southern waters, in public ownership, although to surf and paddle, to explore particularly those in the southeast, under multiple management underwater reefs and sponge are more species-rich than most arrangements, some incompatible gardens. The multiple attractions other temperate seas worldwide with conservation. Five wetland sites reflect the great diversity of habitats and host many more unique species of global significance recognised – sandy and muddy flats, estuaries, than the more celebrated Great under the Ramsar Convention are saltmarshes, cliffs, rocky reefs, Barrier Reef. The level of uniqueness found on or near the coast. seagrass meadows, kelp forests, in many marine groups is close to among many others – inhabited by a 90%, and diversity is particularly Threatened biodiversity: Many multitude of life forms, many unique high in seaweeds, animals living in marine and coastal species to Victoria. soft sediments on the sea bottom, have become much rarer due to hydroids, sea mosses and sponges. human impacts. More than 180 The biological richness and Southern Australia has the highest are considered threatened (listed uniqueness of Victoria’s marine level of seaweed endemism (62%) on government advisory lists). environments come from 80 million of any region globally, as well as Threatened marine species include years of geological isolation, a lack the highest species richness, with 17 invertebrates, 10 seabirds of mass extinction events, and a more than 1150 species. Seaweeds and five mammals but the status high density of different habitats have additional high value because, of most marine life, particularly marine invertebrates, is poorly within a relatively small area. Several along with seagrasses, they are the known. Coastal species considered oceanic influences intersect in main primary producers in marine threatened include more than 30 Victorian waters, placing them at the waters and serve as food, habitat plants and more than 30 birds. Only confluence of three biogeographic and predator protection for many about half the species on threatened provinces, reflected in the mix of animals. Sponge diversity and species advisory lists have been species shared with western, eastern endemism are also exceptional, formally listed under legislation, and and southern oceans. Although Victorian waters hosting more than a only about half of these have action Victoria’s state waters account third of Australia’s described species. for less than 0.1% of Australia’s statements to guide recovery efforts. exclusive economic zone, 8% of In 2002, following a decade of Just two marine and three coastal national bioregions are represented, environmental campaigning, ecological communities are formally listed as threatened but almost a reflection of habitat diversity. The Victoria became the first place in the two-thirds of ecological vegetation terrestrial coast also has high habitat world to implement a biologically classes within 500 metres of the diversity, featuring six national representative system of marine shoreline are informally classed as bioregions and 10 subregions. The protected areas, declaring 13 marine threatened. Marine communities coast (defined here as the land national parks and 11 marine are poorly documented, with within 500 metres of the shoreline) sanctuaries encompassing about no equivalent to the ecological has 95 vegetation types (ecological 5.3% of state waters. A greater but vegetation class classification used vegetation classes), almost one- less representative proportion of for terrestrial communities. third of Victoria’s total, 34 of them the coast is securely protected, with unique to the coast. The wetlands, about 37% of the area from the
Australia’s southern waters, particularly those in the southeast, are more species-rich than most other temperate seas worldwide and host ‘many more unique species than the Great Barrier Reef. 14 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Juvenile Scalyfin shelters under a rocky reef. Photo John Gaskell Conservation gaps and priorities
trengthening protection for could be lost before they are even needs an independent inquiry into marine and coastal ecosystems identified. We need a program of marine and coastal biodiversity Sis essential not only to systematic data collection, with field to recommend new areas for protect biodiversity from multiple sampling and taxonomic support, protection to achieve conservation current threats but also to foster to identify rare and threatened of biodiversity and maximise their resilience and adaptation to biodiversity. The state of knowledge resilience to current and looming rapid climate change. Marine and is too rudimentary to be able to threats. It is more than a decade coastal habitats are among the predict with certainty the ecological since a network of highly protected most vulnerable to climate change. implications of many changes areas was established in 5.3% of With the East Australian Current occurring in the marine environment. Victorian waters. A gap analysis strengthening, southern Australian Apart from species exploited for conducted for this review shows they waters have been warming very fishing and aquaculture, little is are inadequate to protect the values rapidly. known even about the basic biology they were established for and to and ecology of most marine life. achieve the goal of a comprehensive, Knowledge: Knowledge of adequate and representative biodiversity and ecology is essential A systematic approach through the network. Bioregional priorities for for management of any environment development of a marine and coastal increased protection have been but is particularly lacking for research strategy and action plan identified in this review. Victoria’s marine habitats. Even is needed to address knowledge for the national park estate, one gaps and improve linkages The past decade has also brought of the serious threats highlighted between research and management compelling evidence that a in government assessments is priorities. Long-term research and substantially larger network is limited knowledge of important monitoring programs are needed needed to protect biodiversity ecological processes. With much to establish the extent and state of and ecological processes and of Victoria’s marine biodiversity yet marine biodiversity. More effective to foster ecosystem resilience, a to be described, and some yet to dissemination of information is growing imperative in the face of be discovered, marine taxonomy essential to improve marine and climate change. Many ecologists requires a considerable boost. At coastal protection, planning and now consider that strict protection the current level of investment, management. of 30% of marine ecosystems is it will take many decades to gain the minimum needed, which is a comprehensive inventory of The national park and conservation consistent with the level of ‘no Victoria’s marine life, and species system: As a high priority, Victoria take’ protection in the Great Barrier
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW MARINE & COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS | 15 Reef Marine Park. There are various pressures, invasive species and holistic focus on ecosystems and lines of evidence to support this, unregulated recreation – also need ecological processes. One of the such as experiments showing better management. main goals of ecosystem-based that intact habitats are more management is to build ecological resistant to biological invasions, Bays, inlets and estuaries: The many resilience – to sustain or restore the and observations that organisms wriggles in Victoria’s coastline and capacity of ecosystems to resist, in protected areas suffer from less a high density of coastal waterways buffer or recover from impacts disease and trophic cascades. have endowed the state with a of climate change and other multitude of diverse bays, inlets pressures. Although governments Substantial coastal areas with and estuaries of immense value have accepted that an ecosystem important natural values, to both humans and wildlife. At approach is essential, there are few including endangered vegetation the intersection of freshwater and examples of implementation. A communities, lack effective sea water, estuaries are a dynamic new overarching legal and policy protection due to development transitional environment, linking framework and a marine and coastal pressures, insecure tenure catchments to marine environments authority with the mandate to and inadequate management. and affected by conditions both in achieve this outcome are needed. Subregional priorities for increased local catchments and far upstream. Integration between marine and protection have been identified in Most have been modified and coastal management can also be this review, which can be achieved degraded due to catchment fostered by preparing regional by upgrading protection for crown degradation, changes to freshwater marine and coastal plans, aligning land reserves; buying, leasing or inflows, coastal urbanisation and coastal regional boundaries with covenanting private land; and alteration of estuary entrances. those of catchment management improving land zonings. The aim should be to securely protect all With very high values and threats, authorities and improving links with existing remnant vegetation, a Victoria’s bays, inlets and estuaries regional catchment strategies. warrant a special conservation relatively small area with extremely Coastal protection and restoration: focus. The two largest, Port Phillip high values under extreme pressures. As the interface between land Bay and Western Port, which have A coastal private land conservation and sea, where many different internationally significant values at program is needed to fund high- landforms and oceanic influences priority acquisitions or leases of risk from major industrial enterprises meet, Victoria’s coast is naturally a private land. A public acquisition and catchment pressures, should dynamic and diverse environment. overlay could be considered to be managed by an independent As the most popular zone for living protect high-priority private land authority. Getting serious about and recreating, Victoria’s coast is from development and give the the ecological health of Victoria’s also under much pressure, placing government first option to buy when bays and inlets requires a program at risk much of what lures people properties are offered for sale. with clear measurable improvement targets, monitoring and public there. With climate change already Victoria’s protected areas need reporting, including a regular impacting coastal nature and much science-based, dedicated ‘state of the bays’ report. Other more change inevitable, ‘resilience’ management. A 2011 audit by recommended measures are a state and climate ‘adaptation’ need to Victoria’s auditor general found environment protection policy for become much more than buzzwords. major deficiencies in management estuaries and a shorebird protection Essential to this are easing existing of the marine estate – ‘little strategy. pressures (due to development, management activity is evident’, invasive species and bushfires it declared. All recommendations Ecosystem-based management: among others) and restoring from that audit should be Marine management is plagued natural habitats. As a starting point, implemented, informed by advice by shortcomings arising from objectives to foster resilience and from a 2014 report by the Victorian a predominant focus on single adaptation should be included in Environmental Assessment Council. sectors (fishing, boating, mining) Victorian planning provisions and Coastal reserves – many lacking and single species. The complex planning framework, complemented management plans and highly interconnectedness of marine by changes to coastal statutory vulnerable to developmental environments requires a more zoning and overlays to provide for in
16 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION National parks and conservation Marine national parks and sanctuaries system (public lands) Other marine protected areas Other public lands Victorian waters Terrestrial subregions
Marine bioregions Otway Flinders Central Bass Strait Victorian Embayments Central Victoria
situ protection of coastal habitats for interests over long-term ecological based management also requires as long as possible and assist inland health. The well-accepted better protection of habitats critical retreat as sea levels rise. prevention-first hierarchy needs to targeted species (such as fish to be comprehensively applied, nurseries and important feeding Coastal habitats are being burdened by requiring risk assessment of grounds) and whole-of-catchment by an accumulation of infrastructure all introductions, conducting programs to improve water quality – roads, tracks, car parks, buildings surveillance and responding quickly and protect coastal habitats. and utilities – that compromise to new incursions. Ecosystem-based natural, scenic and recreational management requires bolstering There is little monitoring or values. Much of it is unnecessary resilience to invasive species impacts management of the impacts of or could be sited elsewhere. An (eg by restoring predators and recreational fishing, even though independent review of infrastructure reducing nutrient enrichment). In the recreational catch for several species is similar to or exceeds the adjacent to the coastal national park a 2011 audit of marine protected commercial catch, and pressures on and conservation system should areas management, Victoria’s auditor some species and ecosystems are be commissioned, with the aim general found that the environment substantial. With about half a million of relocating, removing or better department was ill-prepared and participants, recreational fishing managing it to minimise impacts on underfunded to respond to new pressure in Victoria has surged, natural values. incursions of invasive marine species. and enforcement of regulations A marine pest biosecurity plan, with Governance structures and is difficult and hamstrung by too processes: Victoria’s governance a strong prevention focus, should be few resources. Recreational fishers structures and processes are too a high priority. typically discard most fish they catch, disparate to achieve the state’s goals Fishing: Although a requirement retaining a few favoured species. for marine and coastal management. for ecosystem-based management The impacts on discarded species Reforms proposed here include is recognised in some Victorian could be substantial, particularly new laws to implement ecosystem- fisheries, there has been no rigorous for rare or declining species. High based management and ecologically priorities include conducting surveys evaluation of the ecosystem effects sustainable development – a and monitoring to assess impacts on of fishing, and knowledge of Victorian Marine and Coastal target and non-target species and ecosystem processes on which to Planning and Management Act – and habitats, improving enforcement, base evaluations is largely lacking. a marine and coastal strategy, with and allocating a substantial Criteria to assess the ecological subsidiary marine and coastal plans. proportion of funds collected by sale sustainability of all fisheries, To provide oversight and integration, of recreational fishing licences to whether commercial or recreational, an independent authority – a habitat management. Victorian Marine and Coastal should be developed, and site- Authority – should be established specific ecological risk assessments Other impacts of potential high to absorb and expand the functions conducted. The introduction of or moderate risk, such as animal of the existing Victorian Coastal ecosystem-based limits – such as the entanglements with lost fishing gear, Council, with regional marine and abundance of particular functional death or injury of animals due to coastal boards to replace the existing species in fished ecosystems – is a boat strikes, the spread of invasive coastal boards. Transparent decision- partial solution to the difficulties of species and fish stock enhancement, making and meaningful community insufficient knowledge. Reducing need to be identified and addressed. participation are also essential to fishing pressure on some targeted Examples of measures needed to sound governance. populations is needed to buffer reduce risks are phasing in the ecological communities against use of biodegradable hooks and Biosecurity: Current approaches other disturbances. For example, fishing lines, requiring all stock to invasive species tend to be maintaining healthy populations of enhancement proposals to be the opposite of ecosystem-based large adult rock lobsters, which are subject to public environmental management – more reactive efficient predators of long-spined impact assessment, and prohibiting than proactive, mostly focused sea urchins, can help prevent the the transport of live invasive species on a few harmful species, and destruction of giant kelp marine as bait. prioritising short-term commercial forests by the urchins. Ecosystem-
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW MARINE & COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS | 17 Overview of future directions
his is a brief summary of management of marine protected • Develop a shorebird protection some of the review’s major areas. strategy. Trecommendations for marine and coastal ecosystems. • Establish a coastal private land conservation program with a fund to buy, lease or covenant private Marine and coastal land abutting coastal conservation management Research and information reserves, coastal crown land • Develop a Victorian Marine and sharing reserves or the high water mark for Coastal Planning and Management protection and restoration. • Prepare and implement a marine Act as a basis for implementing and coastal research strategy and • Strengthen protection of ecosystem-based management of action plan. coastal crown land reserves all marine and coastal waters. for conservation and public • Establish a long-term scientific • Establish a Victorian Marine and purposes by developing coastal research and monitoring program, Coastal Authority and regional management plans and applying which includes a systematic marine and coastal boards. a zoning scheme to coastal biodiversity assessment program, reserves consistent with the for marine national parks and • Require that all coastal catchment recommendations of the Land sanctuaries and other coastal and management authorities have Conservation Council (1978). at least one-third of their board marine environments. members with coastal or marine • Establish a marine and coastal expertise. research and information service Iconic bays and inlets • Merge many of the small to address high priority knowledge committees of management gaps, promote the value of • Establish a Two Bays Board for along the coast into combined research, and function as a clearing strategic oversight of the health of community committees of house for information and advice. Port Phillip and Western Port and management. their catchments.
• Develop a Victorian marine and • Produce a five-yearly State of the coastal strategy, coordinated by National park and Bays report. conservation system the Victorian Marine and Coastal Authority, to provide an over- • Develop improvement targets for arching framework for ecologically • Commission the Victorian bays and inlets with water quality, Environmental Assessment Council sustainable, ecosystem-based ecosystem health and open space management of all human uses (or other credible independent and recreation criteria. Link the body) to conduct an inquiry into and impacts affecting Victoria’s targets to statutory planning seas and coast. marine and coastal biodiversity instruments and controls on future to recommend areas for new or development. • Prepare and implement regional expanded marine national parks marine and coastal plans. Include and sanctuaries. The latest science • Set up a scientific monitoring strategies to prepare for the and expert opinions, taking into program to publicly report on impacts of climate change on account the threats to Victorian progress towards the bays and coastal and marine ecosystems ecosystems, suggest that targets inlets improvement targets on a by identifying areas at risk and should include 30% of each two-yearly basis. measures to limit damage and habitat type in marine bioregions promote adaptation. and 100% of remnant coastal • Develop a state environment vegetation, habitats of threatened protection policy for estuaries. • Develop ecosystem-based species and special features such as management plans for marine and Ramsar wetlands. • Establish the boat carrying capacity coastal invasive species threats, of Port Phillip Bay, Western Port including a strong focus on • Implement all outstanding and other bays and estuaries in prevention and rapid responses to recommendations from the Victoria, and set limits on boat new incursions. 2011 inquiry by Victoria’s auditor numbers consistent with their general into the environmental carrying capacity.
18 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION 20 priority areas for marine conservation
4. Pt Lillias-Pt Wilson • • 10. Flinders-Honeysuckle-Merricks 5. Pt Wilson-Kirk Pt • • 11. Cape Schanck 19. Mallacoota Inlet • 6. Wedge Pt •
• 13. North Arm of Western Port Bay • 7. Crawfish Rock • 18. Bemm Reef 8. Clifton Springs • • 17. Gippsland Lakes 20. Gabo Island • • 15. Anderson Inlet
9. Pt Nepean • • 16. Ninety Mile Beach
• 2. Deen Maar (Lady Julia • 14. Bunurong Marine and Coastal Park Percy Island)
• 1. Bridgewater Bay 3. Cape Otway • • 11. Phillip Island • 12. Summerland Peninsula and Seal Rocks
Coastal protection and assist adaptation and retreat, and of important benthic and pelagic restoration amend coastal statutory zoning ecosystems. and overlays to aim for in situ • Expand and strengthen the protection of coastal nature for as • Assess the recreational fishing BushBroker, CoastalTender and long as possible and assist inland catch and impacts, including by saltmarsh protection projects. retreat as sea levels rise. conducting large-scale surveys of participation and catch every • Commission an independent • Introduce a new vegetation three to five years, requiring all review of infrastructure within and restoration overlay to the state recreational fishers to be licensed, adjacent to the coastal national planning provisions, to protect conducting fisheries-independent park estate and crown land a 100-200 metre buffer around monitoring for key recreational reserves with the aim of relocating coastal crown land. species, re-establishing annual or removing unnecessary trawl surveys of Port Phillip Bay, infrastructure or better managing and investigating the impacts of fishing discards on declining target it to minimise impacts on natural Fishing values. species. • Implement ecosystem-based • Establish a Coastal Infrastructure • Improve enforcement of fishing management of commercial and Unit to ensure that coastal laws, with a strong focus on recreational fisheries: declare ‘key infrastructure is assessed, designed, protecting marine national parks fishery habitats’, implement whole- and sanctuaries from illegal fishing. constructed and maintained within of-catchment plans to maintain the principles of ecologically coastal habitat and water quality, • Require all stock enhancement sustainable development and establish criteria for ecological proposals to be subject to a public ecosystem-based management. sustainability of individual environmental impact assessment, • Foster climate change adaptation commercial and recreational prohibit the transport of live fisheries, and conduct location- by identifying where coastal invasive species as bait, and phase specific ecological risk assessments. settlements and nature can move in the use of biodegradable hooks and fishing lines. to as a result of sea level rise, • Develop a policy framework to and reviewing the zoning and follow up and manage important • Allocate a substantial proportion conservation status of all identified risks uncovered in environmental of fishing licensing fees to support priority areas. Include in the risk assessments. long-term fish habitat recovery Victorian planning provisions and projects. planning framework an objective to • Monitor the community ecology
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW MARINE & COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS | 19 TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS
Values
rom sprawling salt-sprayed bird species, more than a quarter of the world, of value for mitigating coastal scrubs to high alpine its mammals and lichens, and about global warming; native insects, birds Fherbfields, from grasslands a fifth of its vascular plants. There are and mammals provide pollination and heathlands of intricate beauty many species yet to be identified or services; worms and many other to rainforests of mossy lushness, described, particularly invertebrates soil organisms maintain productive from stunted mallee woodlands to (animals without backbones), fungi soils; and natural places offer great wet eucalypt forests of towering and non-vascular plants (mosses for recreational opportunities and grandeur, Victoria offers an example). The majority of species are aesthetic pleasures. These numerous abundance of natural diversity and small and overlooked – the likes of services of value for humans are beauty. The state’s 23 million hectares insects, worms and fungi – but their poorly documented and appreciated. of climatically, geographically and ecological importance is immense. geologically diverse landscapes are About 10% of plants and hundreds of Of tremendous environmental, social inhabited by a multitude of different invertebrates are unique to the state. and economic value is the 17% of life forms. Several hundred fungi are also likely Victoria’s land area in the national to be endemic but only a fifth or so park and conservation system. About The state spans two of six climatic have been scientifically named. 1300 plant species and 180 animals zones and 11 of 85 national are known only from national parks, bioregions, and has more than 300 As well as the intrinsic value of each and in fragmented landscapes parks vegetation communities (ecological component of Victoria’s biodiversity, often protect the last remaining large vegetation classes). Australia is many species and ecological areas of natural vegetation. Although recognised as one of the world’s communities have great value for the area of private lands securely megadiverse countries, and on the their contribution to ecosystem protected is small (about 100,000 3% of land area constituting Victoria services. Mountain ash forests, hectares), they have particularly high are some 80,000 to 100,000 species, for example, have the highest value in largely cleared regions where including about half of Australia’s known biomass carbon density in national parks are scarce.
Victorian native grasslands. Photo: It’s a Wildlife
20 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION ~ 650 vertebrates ~ 3600 vascular plants
~ 50,000-80,000 invertebrates
~ 2500 non-vascular plants ~ 30,000 fungi
Relative numbers of native species in Victoria represented by size
The size of the images is proportionate to the relative number of species in Victoria, an estimated 80,000-100,000.
Places recognised for outstanding extinct, more than 1000 threatened The need for habitat restoration is biodiversity values include the and another 1000 or so rare, near highlighted by the fact that about Australian Alps as one of 11 threatened or with their status 40% of Victoria’s land vertebrate Australian centres of plant endemism, unknown (according to government species are totally reliant on and the Victorian Volcanic Plain advisory lists). About a fifth of fragmented landscapes. Conservation as one of 15 national biodiversity Victoria’s terrestrial vertebrates attention should extend beyond rare hotspots, due to its combination of (mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs) and threatened species, as some high values and high levels of threat. and plants are threatened, as are widespread species are also at risk more than half the state’s ecological of decline – monitoring of greater Victoria specialises in giant trees, vegetation classes. Eleven ecological gliders in the Central Highlands with the tallest flowering plant in the communities are listed nationally as recorded annual declines of 8.8% world, mountain ash, found only in endangered or critically endangered. over 12 years – and maintaining their Victoria and Tasmania. Large old trees abundance may be important for are immensely important habitats, Mammals have suffered the greatest ecological processes such as seed providing shelter and nesting sites for losses, with 19 species extinct and dispersal and pollination, for food more than 40 species of cavity-using another 19 threatened. The losses webs, for structure and biomass vertebrates and food (fruits, flowers, affect not only these species, in ecosystems and for variance in leaves and nectar) for many more, but many ecosystem functions, species richness. creating micro-environments with with consequences for forest high levels of soil nutrients and plant health, vegetation structure and species richness, playing a crucial role composition, and soil quality. But in local hydrological regimes, and many animals extinct in Victoria are storing large quantities of carbon. not extinct Australia-wide, offering potential for future recovery of Threatened biodiversity: Victoria’s species and their ecosystem functions terrestrial ecosystems have suffered if exotic predators can be controlled grievous losses: more than 80 species and habitats restored.
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS | 21 Gaps and priorities
ith less than half the land retaining original vegetation The Nature Conservation Review Reserve Targets and only a quarter with W Status of ecological vegetation class Nature conservation review reserve targets largely intact vegetation, major challenges lie ahead to avert further Extinct Rehabilitate, revegetate, and reserve degradation and loss of biodiversity Endangered 90% (preferably 100%) of remaining extent and restore health to Victoria’s Vulnerable 60% of remaining extent, 90% in fragmented bioregions landscapes. For a great many reasons – ecological, economic, Depleted 60% of remaining extent, 90% in fragmented bioregions social and moral – this mission is Rare 90% (preferably 100%) of remaining extent worthy of a concerted state-wide Least Concern 30% of remaining extent, 50% in fragmented bioregions effort. A great many Victorians Coastal 100% of remaining extent within 500 metres of the are contributing to the effort in coastline multiple ways. Over large areas, the damage has been severe – due to extensive land clearing and logging, a multitude of invasive species and Assessment Council to determine enter into Trust for Nature covenants damaging fire regimes in particular. the most efficacious way to achieve and support for conservation on With climate change already pushing a comprehensive, adequate and Indigenous lands. out the extremes of drought and fire, representative system on both public now is the time to do as much as and private lands. This will require After a long struggle by Aboriginal possible to mitigate threats, foster secure and permanent protection people in Victoria, some land resilience and facilitate adaptation. of an additional 3 million hectares, and sea is being returned to Traditional Owners and Indigenous National park and conservation about half of which can be achieved on public land. VNPA has identified culture is becoming increasingly system: Expanding the national respected. Joint or cooperative park and conservation system is five priority clusters for expanding protection, based on their poor management of protected areas more important than ever as a core and Indigenous protected areas conservation strategy. About three- representation in the national park and conservation system, and offer ways for Traditional Owners quarters of Victoria’s subregions to maintain connections with their current threats and opportunities remain poorly protected, with fewer country, practise and promote (see page 47). than half their ecological vegetation their culture and contribute to the classes meeting the reservation conservation of biodiversity. This targets adopted in this review, The gap analysis shows the importance of private land review recommends an increased shown in the table above (see map focus on negotiated agreements for next page). Because of the historical conservation in Victoria. To achieve the reserve targets will require joint or cooperative management of tendency to establish national parks protected areas, ongoing financial in ‘leftover’ areas – mostly rugged, a strong focus on perpetual conservation covenants and support for these management dry or infertile land not favoured arrangements and stronger support for development – the most cleared purchases for the public estate. The contribution of private landholders to realise Indigenous aspirations for subregions of Victoria generally conservation management. have the lowest proportion of native to Victoria’s conservation estate is vegetation in protected areas, the small but growing rapidly. Private At a time when natural environments highest numbers of endangered land conservation will be greatly are under increasing pressure, law vegetation communities and high aided by the Trust for Nature’s and policy changes and inadequate rates of private land ownership. Of identification of 12 focal landscapes resources are undermining the the 10 subregions with more than 30 that ‘provide the best opportunities capacity of park managers to protect endangered ecological vegetation for maintaining priority ecosystems national parks from threats such classes, all except one have more and species on private land’. The as climate change and invasive than two-thirds of land area in Victorian Environmental Assessment species. Imposition of a damaging private tenure. Council should be tasked with an and misguided burning target, and investigation into how to overcome proposals for exploitation such as The state government should barriers to conservation on private commercial tourism development commission a state-wide assessment land. Essential measures include and grazing, and the potential by the Victorian Environmental greater incentives for landholders to
22 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Ecological vegetation classes in subregion that meet the nature conservation review reserve targets 0-20% 21-40% 41-60% 61-80% 81-100%
The proportion of ecological vegetation classes in Victorian subregions that meet the nature conservation review reserve targets (in table, page 22) to allow logging under the guise National Parks Act had approved of strengthening protection, of ecological thinning, are all management plans less than 15 the Victorian government has incompatible with maintaining years old. Managing threats and recently weakened regulations. conservation values. Unless monitoring trends in national parks The requirement to prioritise short-comings in invasive species require high level expertise. As the avoidance of clearing (in the management in the national park much of this expertise is outside the hierarchy of avoid, minimise and estate are addressed, inexorable parks agency, arrangements such as offset) has been abandoned in deterioration in some of the state’s expert advisory bodies are needed favour of default approval of finest natural places will result. to ensure that park managers have clearing except if it cannot be offset. Shortcomings include limited ready access to advice. But nothing Mapping has placed more than 95% knowledge of the distribution can replace a high level of in-house of native vegetation on private land and impacts of weeds and pests, knowledge and experience – staff in the category allowing as-of- inadequate resources for control, training and the recruitment of right clearing of any area less than and a lack of monitoring to measure highly qualified staff should be one hectare if offsets are provided. effectiveness. Reliable recurrent a high priority. A strategic plan Enforcement of vegetation laws funding for long-term multi-species is needed to guide the future is poor and the extent of illegal control programs is essential. of the national park estate and clearing is unknown. The system of communicate its great importance. vegetation management is opaque, Park planning in Victoria is in with no public reporting on permits crisis and should be returned to Vegetation: With more than issued, permit conditions, offsets, the hands of a revitalised parks half the state cleared of native compliance and monitoring. agency with expertise in managing vegetation and much of the rest ecological systems. (Parks Victoria degraded, the priority must be to The area of native vegetation is contracted by the government to protect what remains and work protected and restored through manage parks but is not in charge to reverse degrading processes, offsets is small and far exceeded of planning.) In 2011-12, only 65% while embarking on restoration by what has been lost. Some of properties managed under the of high priority areas. Instead offsets deliver only paper gains
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS | 23 (eg changes in tenure with little The proportion of cleared, unprotected and protected improved management), and gains from restoration and management vegetation in each Victorian subregion are often uncertain and require long-term commitment, but only 10 years of active audited management is required. Most offset sites are 100% not monitored, so confirmation of offset ‘gains’ are rarely verified. An independent audit is needed to 80% assess the extent to which offset targets are being achieved, their degree of permanence, and how the system can be reformed to 60% deliver genuine compensation for vegetation destroyed or damaged. Offsets should be required for all threatened biodiversity, as identified 40% on government advisory lists.
Because protecting vegetation is 20% foundational to ecosystem and landscape health and fraught with governance challenges, it needs an independent regulator with stand- 0% alone legislation to give force to the native vegetation management Wimmera Goldfields Murray Fans GlenelgOtway Plain Plain Bridgewater Murray Mallee VictorianOtway Alps Ranges Lowan Mallee Gippsland Plain Robinvale Plains framework. As proposed by the DundasVictorian TablelandsStrzelecki Riverina Ranges Murray Scroll Belt Warrnambool Plain Monaro Tablelands Highlands - Far East GreaterWilsons Grampians Promontory Victorian Volcanic Plain Northern Inland Slopes East Gippsland Uplands Victorian Competition and Efficiency Central Victorian Uplands HighlandsEast - GippslandNorthernHighlands Fall Lowlands - Southern Fall Commission, this independent statutory authority should be responsible for operational Cleared Unprotected Public Land functions: assessing clearing Unprotected Private Land Protected applications, administering offsets, 17% Aichi target monitoring and compliance, and providing expert advice. Other reforms needed are a public register of documents – including clearing and expanded to achieve clearly with evaluation of outcomes permits, assessment reports, offset articulated priorities, secured by informing the design of future agreements and plans, monitoring mechanisms such as permanent projects. Goals should be defined and audit reports – and a monitoring conservation covenants and and realistic, and take into account and compliance framework. monitored to assess outcomes. potential future changes – such as climate change, impacts of invasive Stewardship and restoration: Binding on-title covenants increase plants and animals, and alterations Protecting natural values on private the likelihood that remnant or in hydrological and soil conditions. lands is essential to Victoria’s future restored habitat will be retained and These issues are being addressed but an immensely challenging maintained in the long term. in recent projects that aim to create policy area because of the rights landscape-scale ‘biolinks’ to connect afforded property owners and the Victoria faces an immense large areas of high-quality intact commercial focus of much land restoration task. Natural vegetation for multiple outcomes, use. It will be necessary to motivate regeneration on abandoned or including carbon sequestration and and support many thousands of little-used farmland is believed to restoration of ecological functions. landholders to better manage their account for most gains in native Biolinks have great potential as a land for conservation. Victoria has vegetation extent. Many thousands communication and community been a leader in ecomarket schemes of Victorians are engaged in engagement tool, fostering a (eg BushTender, EcoTender), which restoration, mostly on private positive spirit of contribution to an provide landholders with income property, under programs including ambitious program and engendering for protecting biodiversity and Landcare, Bushcare and various partnerships across different sectors providing ecosystem services. These incentive schemes. All projects and land tenures, and they should schemes should be strengthened should be considered ‘experimental’,
24 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Priority EVCs for achieving a comprehensive, adequate and representative national park and conservation system
Vegetation classes not meeting Nature Conservation Review reserve targets National parks and reserves Trust for Nature reserves Public land Native vegetation on private land
Note: The analysis on which the priority areas are based does not take into account the spatial arrangement of reserves, the need to protect core habitats, corridors and isolated remnants, the specific needs of species and requirements for climate change adaptation.
Priority subregions for improved protection to achieve the NCR reserve targets for a comprehensive, adequate and representative national park and conservation system
High priority for public land protection High priority for private land protection Medium priority for private land protection High priority for public and private land protection Unassigned
National parks and reserves
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS | 25 Large areas of old-growth forest warrant permanent protection under the National Parks Act. be supported. to other industries, with no values, most logging in the greatly requirements for environmental depleted and fragmented forests of Forests: There are compelling impact assessments when new western Victoria was phased out a conservation, economic and social areas are logged, and forestry laws decade ago and millions of dollars reasons for Victoria to transition are poorly enforced. A review of paid in industry compensation. from logging of native forests to federal environment laws found Large areas of old-growth forest plantation forestry. Native forests that the process for reviewing and are already much depleted, forest- have been protected informally auditing regional forest agreements dependent species continue to and insecurely in ‘special protection ‘is neither independent nor decline and logging compromises zones’ that can be swapped for transparent’, and required reviews ecological processes. Forestry on other sites and logged, mined are often not carried out. public lands has suffered cash and and grazed. These areas warrant permanent and genuine protection investment losses and relies on Recent changes to Victoria’s under the National Parks Act. cheap government loans, greatly Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act disadvantaging plantations, which further undermine the potential are now extensive enough to meet The continual removal of fallen for sustainable forestry. They lock timber demands. Victoria could be wood for firewood and the illegal in logging in native forests for the a world-leader in protecting forest- removal of live and dead trees will indefinite future and remove much based carbon stores that mitigate deplete one of the critical habitat of the government’s oversight. climate change. The transition to elements in native forests. Nine plantations should occur within five Another major backward step is state-listed and three nationally years for woodchip, pulp and paper the re-opening of western forests listed vegetation communities, about products, and 10 years for sawn (west of the Hume Highway) to 60 threatened plant species and timber. logging, with a 2013 decision several animal species are likely to to grant a three-year licence for be detrimentally affected. In 2011, Forestry enjoys exemptions from logging in Mount Cole State Forest. the state government removed the laws and standards that apply In recognition of their conservation need for permits to collect firewood
26 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION As well as being a major drain on public resources for no clear benefit, the 5% annual prescribed burning is likely to cause considerable ‘harm to biodiversity. from public land for private use. as being a major drain on public based on ecological principles is This decision should be reversed so resources for no clear benefit, the needed. There also needs to be that the collection of firewood and 5% annual prescribed burning is a greater focus on systematically the impact on the forests can be likely to cause considerable harm to identifying priorities for eradication, properly monitored and controlled. biodiversity. It should be replaced containment and control. The Areas designated for firewood with regional operational plans that reactive approach also leads to lack collection should at a minimum be focus on risk reduction for human of action on environmentally harmful subject to the same biodiversity assets in high risk areas and apply invasive species with economic or criteria as other timber production targets appropriate to particular social value. Feral deer, for example, methods. It is also vital to examine ecosystems. Asset protection will are protected for the benefit of the impact of firewood removal on require revised planning rules and hunters rather than controlled as the biodiversity values of private building codes to avoid placement an environmental and agricultural land, where 87% of collection occurs. of assets in high-risk areas. There threat. Effective control of Much of the need for firewood could should be cost-benefit analysis of entrenched invasive species requires be met from plantation forests. fuel reduction burning in relation collaboration, planning, government To address the growing threat of to other life-saving measures. In support and monitoring. This can firewood collection from forests, some forest types, such as the tall be facilitated by the establishment Victoria should support a private ash forests, it is likely to be more of regional weed committees farm forestry program to enable useful and cost-effective to fund fire involving government, community collection from public lands to be shelters or strategies for people to representatives and land managers phased out. leave the fire danger area. There is to develop strategies and allocate also need for more public education resources. Training is needed for all Fire management: With both on fire safety and fire management workers and contractors undertaking human safety and biodiversity for conservation. weed control on public lands. at stake, it is vital that bushfire management in Victoria is based on Most decision-making about sound science and takes account of ecologically appropriate fire regimes future climate change. The recent is driven by knowledge of a subset increased frequency and scale of of vegetation, and a hope that the bushfires under a drying climate rest of the biota will follow. But the challenge long-established tenets impacts of fire on most species, and require a different approach particularly animals (vertebrates to protect human life, assets and and invertebrates), fungi and non- biodiversity. There is no credible vascular plants, are unknown, a evidence that the state’s minimum knowledge deficiency that will be annual burning target of 5% of exacerbated by climate change. public land can achieve the goal Research is needed to identify of significantly reducing risks to ecologically appropriate fire regimes life and property. Losses of houses for the full range of biodiversity. and human lives generally occur only under severe fire conditions, Invasive species: Victoria’s already when weather rather than fuel loads dire invasive species problems will exerts the main influence over fire continue to worsen unless there is severity. A high annual target skews substantial reform of laws, policies burn plans towards remote areas, and programs to prevent the where large burns are easier and introduction of new harmful species, cheaper to achieve, but the most eradicate newly established species, effective burns for public safety and more effectively contain and are the smaller but more difficult control established threats. New ones close to communities. As well standalone biosecurity legislation
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS | 27 Overview of future directions
his is a brief summary of • Promote conservation on private • Set up scientific advisory some of the review’s major land: exempt properties with panels for specific national Trecommendations for terrestrial Trust for Nature (TFN) covenants park management issues as ecosystems. from local government rates they arise. and sales of such properties from stamp duty, pay for TFN • Implement expanded long-term covenants in priority areas through weed and feral animal control Victoria’s national park and the BushTender program, fund programs and monitor their conservation system a base transaction fee for all effectiveness. new TFN covenants, establish • Commission the Victorian • Conduct ecologically based fire Environmental Assessment a land improvement fund for management with advice provided Council to investigate how conservation management on by an expert panel. to most effectively achieve a covenanted properties, and ban comprehensive, adequate and mining on TFN covenanted areas. • Provide dedicated funding for representative national park and management and monitoring • Provide support for non- of national parks, with a specific conservation system in Victoria government organisations across both public and private budget line to allow tracking of that manage large areas for spending levels lands. conservation through capacity • Upgrade protection for building, collaboration with Parks • Review existing state charges conservation reserves listed in Victoria and other measures. and levies, such as the parks schedules of the Crown Land and waterways levy, to identify • Ensure that conservation gains funding options for improving (Reserves) Act by transferring on private lands secured with them to the National Parks Act management of the national park public funds are maintained, by and conservation system. and commissioning the Victorian mechanisms such as permanent Environmental Assessment Council conservation covenants, and • Build the resilience of the national to assess the most appropriate monitored. park and conservation system future management arrangements. to climate change: improve • Develop a strategic plan to • Establish a fund for the purchase knowledge, protect threatened guide the future of Victoria’s species and refugia, connect of high-priority lands for addition national park estate that also to the national park estate. the national park estate along communicates its role and environmental gradients and importance. • Engage with Indigenous develop national park specific or regional climate adaptation plans. landowners to develop • Promote conservation-compatible management agreements for community uses of national parks • Implement recommendations biodiversity conservation, provide to encourage people’s physical by the Victorian Environmental ongoing financial support for joint and mental wellbeing rather than Assessment Council to facilitate and cooperative management high-end tourism uses. stewardship agreements with agreements over existing national organisations and individuals for parks and reserves, and work • Safeguard national parks and small public land reserves. with Indigenous representatives reserves from damaging activities, to determine how to better including cattle grazing, mineral support Indigenous aspirations for exploration and fossicking, conservation management. commercial scale logging Native vegetation (‘ecological thinning’), and private • Commission the Victorian commercial developments. • Improve protection of native Environmental Assessment vegetation with new vegetation Council to review how private • Strengthen the focus on laws to establish an independent land conservation can contribute management planning for ‘native vegetation regulator’ to achieving a comprehensive, national parks and increase the to oversee management and adequate and representative policy development and scientific monitoring of native vegetation, national parks and conservation research capacity within the parks conduct enforcement, administer system. agency. offset schemes and provide expert
28 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Fallen trees provide valuable shelter for native animals. Photo: Yasmin Kelsall
advice for assessments and policy- animals; implement a long term Forestry making. monitoring program; for low risk activities in low value areas, • Transition Victoria’s wood products • Strengthen the native vegetation require offset payments according industry from native forests management framework: revert to a fixed rate and where the funds to plantations. For woodchip, to a state-wide objective of ‘net can be used to support existing pulp and paper customers the gain’; reinstate the three-step protected areas; and support the transition should be completed hierarchical approach of avoid, accreditation of pooled services within five years, and for sawn minimise and offset; assess timber customers within 10 that can bank offset ‘credits’ indirect impacts from agricultural years. Elements of this transition and source the required offset activities and impacts on include industry assistance and a outcomes. hydrological regimes; and develop regional development package, a knowledge base to predict likely • Develop a statewide biolinks and additions to the national park responses of vegetation types to plan to enhance landscape and conservation system after climate change. detailed regional investigations connectivity and manage and by the Victorian Environmental restore conservation values at the • Implement a systematic approach Assessment Council (or similar landscape level. to monitoring and enforcement body). of vegetation rules: establish a • Expand and strengthen the use of vegetation monitoring program • Immediately ban logging in overseen by the native vegetation ecomarkets, such as BushTender western Victoria and cancel regulator, establish a public and offsets, within a framework the regional forest agreement register, audit the performance of delivering genuine, permanent applying to south-west Victoria. of permit-holders, establish conservation gains. environmental monitors for • Apply the federal Environment • Review the Land for Wildlife developments, publish online Protection and Biodiversity program to investigate how all relevant information, and Conservation Act to all relevant regularly audit and report on the it can be expanded and its forestry activities by removing the effectiveness of the system. environmental outcomes exemption for forestry conducted improved. under regional forest agreements. • Improve the offsets framework to deliver genuine conservation • Commission research to • Reform forestry policies and gains: commission an independent determine how best to increase guidelines including the regional audit to assess the extent to the ecological and evolutionary forest agreements, the code which targets are being met, resilience of native vegetation of timber production and their degree of permanence, and in the face of climate change, timber contracts to require that improvements needed to deliver including consideration of threatened species are protected ‘net gain’; require offsets for all changes in local provenance and climate change and invasive approved actions impacting on requirements and an increased species are properly considered. focus on interconnectedness in the species on government advisory • Establish Victoria as a world lists of threatened plants and landscape.
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS | 29 Snow Gum Woodland on the Bogong High Plains. Photo: David Tatnall
30 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION leader in protecting forest-based need to remove or modify native regimes on biodiversity. carbon stores that assist the vegetation. Take into account state in meeting carbon pollution climate change predictions for reduction targets. more frequent and more severe bushfire events. Biosecurity • Incorporate informal forestry reserves such as ‘special protection • Investigate the effects of • Develop biosecurity legislation zones’ into the national park and different fire regimes for to strengthen the approach to conservation system by protecting Victoria’s vegetation types. harmful invasive species (see them under the National Parks Act. Establish a suitable range of Environmental Governance age classes for each vegetation section). • Introduce a new approach to type and incorporate this into • Establish regional weed managing firewood in Victoria fire operations planning. Revise committees across Victoria, that ensures continued supply minimum and maximum tolerable involving local governments, other and protection of public lands by fire intervals for each ecological land managers and community providing incentives to support vegetation type, allowing as far representatives, to develop private farm forestry growers to as possible for the full range strategies and allocate resources provide firewood, phasing out of species likely to be affected. for weed eradication and control. firewood collection from public Develop clear guidelines for land and, in the interim, requiring burn severity and patchiness for • Develop training and certification all collection from public land different vegetation types. systems for weed control to to be licensed with stringent be required for all workers and conditions to protect conservation • Plan fuel reduction across all land contractors involved with weed values. tenures by methods that include control on public lands. slashing. Include both planned burns and wildfire, and the • Expand programs facilitating effectiveness of burns, in assessing community engagement in pest Bushfire management whether fuel reduction aims and plant and animal management biodiversity protection have been and ecological monitoring. • Replace any annual state-wide achieved. Take account of the target (5% or otherwise) for condition of vegetation (such • Reclassify feral deer, at present a prescribed burning by a risk- as drought stress) at the time ‘game’ species protected under based approach that is focused of proposed burning. Require the Wildlife Act, as a pest species, on meeting local objectives that protection of a sufficient number map current populations and reduce risks to life, property and and range of hollow-bearing implement coordinated control biodiversity. trees for the long-term protection programs, eradicating populations of hollow-dependent fauna. where feasible. • Assess the need for burning Include fire-sensitive species and programs at a local level in the communities as ‘assets’ warranting • Undertake a control program to context of other potentially more protection from both wildfire and rapidly reduce the population useful public safety measures, planned burns. of feral horses in alpine national such as building designs and parks and surrounding areas, regulations and fire shelters. Do • Develop rapid monitoring primarily using aerial shooting cost-benefit assessments of a methods (such as DNA sampling) under RSPCA-endorsed protocols. range of safety measures when for invertebrates, non-vascular planning fire management. Give plants, fungi and microbes, to • Develop guidelines for managing priority in fuel reduction programs assess short and long-term native species whose distribution to prescribed burns that are impacts of fires on biodiversity. is changing dramatically as a (a) critical for public safety and consequence of climate change or (b) beneficial to both public safety • Conduct research and monitoring other drivers and which may have and biodiversity. to investigate high-priority issues adverse impacts on biodiversity. in fire management, such as the • Apply strong planning rules and effectiveness of fuel reduction building codes in bushfire-prone burns in different vegetation types areas to avoid placing homes and and the effects of different fire people at risk and to reduce the
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS | 31 FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS
Values
uch of Victoria’s landscape Floodplains (lowlands bordering fish predators. Little is known about is densely woven with rivers waterways, which are flooded when Victorian stygofauna (groundwater- Mand streams – the greatest water overflows river banks) are also inhabiting organisms), but they are concentration of waterways on highly productive and ecologically likely to have high levels of diversity Australia’s mainland. They engender important transition zones. Wetlands and extremely high endemicity, most life-sustaining connections from help maintain water quality (by species being confined to single mountain headwaters to coastal filtering nutrients and sediments) aquifers. estuaries, laterally between and reduce the impacts of floods by waterways, riparian fringes and slowing and holding floodwaters. Nine freshwater wetland floodplains, and vertically between The high productivity of many complexes have been recognised surface and subterranean habitats. freshwater habitats means they are as internationally significant, listed Variability along these three spatial likely to be significant carbon sinks. under the Ramsar Convention. As dimensions and through the fourth the state government recognises, dimension of time has generated Groundwater-dependent ecosystems many other Victorian wetlands also extraordinary diversity and (which depend partially or have values likely to qualify for complexity in Victoria’s freshwater completely on water from beneath listing under the Ramsar Convention. ecosystems – from cold rushing the earth’s surface that exists More than 1300 freshwater wetlands mountain streams to warm slow- in pores and crevices) include in 29 sites are listed as nationally moving pools in the drylands, subterranean aquifer and cave significant in Australia’s directory subterranean seepages through rock ecosystems, surface waterbodies of important wetlands. Victoria has pores and fractures, and a multitude with flows from underground 18 ‘heritage river areas’, which are of wetland types – lakes, floodplain sources, and ecosystems dependent segments or corridors on public land billabongs, shallow freshwater and on subsurface groundwater accessed declared for significant recreation, saline swamps, and alpine peatlands. by tree roots. Aquifer and cave conservation, scenic or cultural ecosystems are characterised by heritage values. For the richness of life they sustain, darkness, environmental consistency the refugia they offer in dry times and persistence, and low energy Threatened biodiversity: World- and their contributions to the and oxygen availability. They wide, freshwater habitats have the health and productivity of other are inhabited by specialised and highest proportion of threatened ecosystems, Victoria’s freshwater often endemic organisms, mostly plants and animals, and Victoria ecosystems have immense crustaceans. seems no different. The poor status ecological value. Variability in water of native fish is a telling indication flows, resulting from interactions Victorian freshwater habitats are of the pervasive deterioration of of climate, geology, topography known to support high species Victoria’s freshwater habitats. In the and vegetation, is one of the most diversity: more than 100 waterbirds, Murray-Darling system (as a whole), powerful shapers of ecology. 54 freshwater fish, 38 frogs, 40 native fish populations are estimated Freshwater ecosystems have crayfish and an undetermined to be at 10% of pre-European exceptionally high ecological values, number of other invertebrate settlement levels, and most of the in part because they create ecotones species. Victoria’s wetlands support fish biomass consists of introduced (transition areas between different more than 800 vascular plants. species. More than half of Victoria’s habitats) at multiple scales. Some freshwater groups have high freshwater fish are threatened, and levels of uniqueness. South-eastern at least three are extinct (although Riparian areas are ecologically Australia is a hotspot for crayfish, they survive elsewhere). Similarly, important interfaces between with 40 species recorded, 25 of them high proportions of other freshwater terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. probably unique to Victoria. Another groups are also threatened – about Although only a very small 25 crustaceans are also known to be two-thirds of crayfish and turtles and proportion of total catchment endemic and there are undoubtedly more than a third of frogs. Formal areas, they have a major influence many more in groundwater aquifers. listings of threatened species under on the healthy functioning of river Eight galaxiids (fish) are endemic, the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act ecosystems by providing habitat, and most are still to be formally do not reflect the conservation shading the water, and contributing described after research showing status of freshwater groups, carbon and nutrients. In largely that what was thought to be one with only about half the species cleared landscapes, they often species is really a complex of 15 considered threatened (on the state contain the only native vegetation species. Before exotic trout were government’s advisory lists) formally and are sites of high biodiversity. introduced, galaxiids were the top listed.
32 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Gaps and priorities
reshwater management in are suffering the effects of flow Freshwater systems highlight Victoria exposes the short- regulation that reverses natural the need for whole-of-system Fsightedness of exploitation seasonal patterns, suppresses floods planning and management, for without care for the health of the essential for floodplain health, they are hyper-connected – from system. Dead and dying river red leaves too little water for essential headwaters to estuaries, rivers to gums, desiccating wetlands, rivers ecological functions and imposes floodplains and from surface to dominated by exotic fish and regular barriers to natural migrations and below-ground waters. Restoring toxic algal blooms are some of the dispersals. Victoria’s highly stressed river and wetland health should be at the top of the state’s priorities – more lamentable symptoms of freshwater systems lack resilience and not only for ecological reasons. chronically overworking Victoria’s to cope with the drier future and rivers. A great many rivers, wetlands, reduced water availability predicted riparian zones and floodplains by climate science
White-Bellied Sea-Eagle
Box Woodland
Red Gum woodland Brolgas Giant River Red Gum
Blue-Billed Ducks Egret
Inland Carpet Python
Giant Banjo Frog
Murray Cod
Illustration by Rhyll Plant & Jess McGeachin River Red Gum ecosystem
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS | 33 Proportion of river in good/excellent condition <10% 11-30% 31-50% 51-70% >70% Insufficient data
The proportion of rivers in good to excellent condition in Victoria’s river basins, as assessed in the 2010 Index of Stream Condition
Healthy freshwater ecosystems are Natural variability between seasons will require a much stronger needed for economic and human and years, ranging from drought commitment to buy back water health and ecosystem services to floods, often creates essential entitlements in over-allocated such as water purification, as well ecological disturbance, without rivers, remove impediments to as for functioning landscapes and which these systems become more environmental flows, and return biodiversity security. To achieve uniform, sustaining less variety of rivers to a greater degree of this will require improving natural life. natural flow variability. Targets for flow regimes and connectivity, a environmental flows should be comprehensive network of protected Natural variability has been greatly based on a range of ecological freshwater areas, restoration and compromised by flow regulation criteria and achieved by a mix of management of degraded habitats, in the majority of Victorian rivers regulatory measures, market-based action to reduce threats such as through the storage, diversion and instruments and infrastructure invasive species, and sympathetic extraction of water for human uses. improvements. The most cost- whole-of-catchment management. Victoria’s 70 major water storages effective and efficient way to return are capable of holding more than 12 water to the environment is by Environmental flows:Aquatic million megalitres (by comparison, purchasing water from willing sellers. species have evolved life history annual flows in Victorian rivers strategies primarily in response to over the eight years from 2003-04 Victoria has established an natural flow regimes, and changes to to 2010-2011 averaged 26 million ‘environmental water reserve’ but those regimes can dramatically alter megalitres and ranged from 7 million it is highly inadequate for many the future of species and ecosystems to 45 million). rivers and aquifers and has low through impacts on aquatic and security compared to agricultural riparian habitats, the distribution Although socially and economically and industrial uses. During the of food resources, opportunities challenging, restoring environmental millennium drought, environmental for movement and migration, and flows is essential if Victoria is to allocations were sacrificed in conditions for reproduction and arrest degradation and biodiversity several areas to augment supplies recruitment. Each component of decline in freshwater systems. for agricultural and urban uses. a natural flow regime – from no Because of the extent of over- There has been limited use of flow to floods – facilitates different allocation of water and distortion environmental water reserves for riverine functions and processes. of flow regimes in Victoria, this wetlands.
34 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION In the past, the reserve system has been focused primarily around terrestrial values, and freshwater features have often only been incidentally and partially encompassed. Even Ramsar wetlands are not ‘fully protected...
Extinct and threatened species
Freshwater Extinct Critically Endangered Vulnerable Extinct or threatened % extinct or Extinct or group (regionally) endangered (advisory) threatened threatened (advisory) (FFG Act) Fish 3 11 6 11 31 57% 19 Frogs 0 8 4 3 15 39% 11 Turtles 0 0 1 1 2 67% 1 Crayfish 0 3 14 8 25 66% 12
Extinct and threatened species in some freshwater groups (government advisory lists and Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act)
Restoration of flooding regimes is condition, riparian areas are highly protection, improve water quality essential to the health of floodplain valuable in rural areas because they and restore vegetation over the biodiversity, including 110 flood- represent a substantial proportion next five years (details are in the dependent ecological vegetation of remnant vegetation in rural VNPA Riverside Rescue report). classes and almost 200 rare and districts. Nonetheless, about 30% Stewardship programs are also threatened plants and animals of vegetation within a 60 metre required for privately owned on the Murray River floodplain buffer area has been cleared. The frontages. in northern Victoria. Many rivers recent 2010 assessment of stream Freshwater protected areas: In the are so heavily regulated that only condition found that only about past, the reserve system has been rare extreme flood events result in one-fifth of streamside vegetation focused primarily around terrestrial extensive overbank flows. Victoria was in excellent condition and about values, and freshwater features have needs a comprehensive, systematic the same proportion was in poor often only been incidentally and and transparent inventory of flood- condition. partially encompassed. Even Ramsar dependent natural values as a basis wetlands are not fully protected – for allocating water and determining Victoria has a great opportunity to address many significant water only about half their area in Victoria priorities for infrastructure is in land tenures designated for investment to protect floodplains. quality, health and conservation problems by reforming management conservation. Heritage rivers are only protected from the construction of Riparian protection and of the 30,000 kilometres of crown major on-stream dams and not from restoration: As the interface water frontages (publicly owned other alterations to flow regimes. between terrestrial and aquatic riparian land). A high priority for ecosystems, riparian areas suffer conservation and public health is Just as for terrestrial values, a the impacts of both extensive river to limit livestock access to riparian comprehensive, adequate and regulation and damaging land uses, areas. Victoria’s crown water representative system of freshwater and most in Victoria have been frontages should be managed protected areas should be a core degraded. The worst are in the in the public interest to restore conservation strategy. Victoria west, including in the Corangamite, the essential ecosystem services needs a standardised system for Hopkins, Barwon and Moorabool provided by healthy riparian zones classifying freshwater ecological basins, and the best are in forests in for biodiversity and human health. communities as the basis for the Otways, the North East and East This will require measures to halt conservation planning. Initial Gippsland. Despite their often poor degradation, increase biodiversity candidates for better protection are
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS | 35 freshwater ecosystems with part There are wide-ranging exemptions sustainable. Research is needed to of their area in national parks that under planning laws, and even when address these knowledge gaps, and have the least disturbed catchments permits are required for activities should take into account the riverine, and high biodiversity values, and damaging to wetlands, decision- wetland and floodplain ecosystems freshwater refugia likely to facilitate makers tend to impose conditions that depend on groundwater input. survival of organisms under climate rather than refuse applications. A recent mapping exercise by the change. Implementation of the Planning schemes should be government shows the extent Heritage Rivers Act has languished amended to ensure that high- of potential linkages, but more in recent years. To be effective, it value wetlands are identified and information is needed about the needs reviewing and revamping given much stronger protection. water requirements of groundwater- to encompass wetlands and This could be achieved by a new dependent ecosystems and the influence catchment management. ‘wetlands overlay’ for planning ecology of stygofauna. As recommended by the Land schemes to prohibit development Conservation Council in 1991, that would destroy or degrade high- Catchment management: All land Victoria should create ‘representative value wetlands. Because wetland use activities can potentially affect rivers’ to protect the best examples protection in Victoria is fragmented freshwater ecosystems and therefore of the many varieties of river in the and often ineffective, there is great matter. Effective management state. The protection of high value, need for an overarching strategy to has to be at a catchment scale. largely intact freshwater ecosystems set out goals, targets and measures Catchment damage has been most should be optimised by creating for wetland protection. Victoria’s prevalent and intense in areas freshwater reference areas under the 2013 waterway management used for agricultural production, Reference Areas Act. strategy proposes to better integrate natural resource extraction and management of rivers and wetlands, urban development, on private Wetlands: In 1994 it was estimated and advances a policy for the land. About two-thirds of the state that about a quarter of Victoria’s identification of priority wetlands is private land, from which over original wetlands (covering 200,000 for environmental watering, but 80% of vegetation cover has been hectares) had been destroyed, the strategy overall fails to specify cleared. Therefore, sympathetic mainly through drainage. Many objectives and actions to drive whole-of-catchment management more have been modified and reforms essential to protect and requires effective partnerships damaged, and their overall extent restore wetland health. between private landholders and and condition are thought to be all levels of local, regional and state declining. However, there is no Groundwater: Better management institutions, backed up by effective recent information about the overall of groundwater is needed, starting laws, institutional arrangements and extent of loss. A 2012 index of with a systematic assessment incentive programs. wetland condition assessment of 587 of the condition of aquifers, the high-value wetlands (6% of Victoria’s nature of links to surface water and To be effective, catchment non-alpine wetlands) from 2009-10 comprehensive monitoring. The management strategies have to found that although just over half extent and condition of subterranean guide all activities in Victoria, were in good or excellent condition, groundwater ecosystems are whether by private or public land catchment and vegetation condition unknown. Groundwater resources managers, and be based on a and hydrology were each poor for are increasingly under pressure more sophisticated ecosystem- more than one third of them. Several from extraction and a changing based model that takes account wetland ecological communities climate, and there is insufficient of ecological processes, with have been listed as threatened monitoring to determine whether clear targets and indicators and under state or national laws, and extraction rates are sustainable. informed by long-term monitoring more than 85% of the 145 wetland Increased extraction and reduced programs. As the Catchment ecological vegetation classes recharge led to drops in the level Management Council stresses, there mapped in Victoria are threatened of several aquifers from the late should be standard approaches to in at least one subregion. But this 1990s to 2010 but they have risen monitoring, evaluation and review, does not convey the extent of threat since wetter conditions in 2011. and a system of sharing information for wetlands as their vegetation has Long-term declines have continued across sectors, organisations and not been comprehensively mapped in Gippsland associated with de- communities involved in land and at a fine scale and their status fully watering of Latrobe Valley coal mines water management. analysed. and off-shore oil and gas extraction. In 2010, the auditor general found About 80% of remaining wetlands that there were insufficient data are on private lands, yet protection and monitoring to determine the for them under Victoria’s planning extent of groundwater reserves framework is inconsistent, usually and whether extraction rates are non-specific, and often non-existent.
36 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Growling Grass Frog. Photo: It’s a Wildlife Overview of future directions
his is a brief summary of such as artificial structures, that to fence boundaries, set up some of the review’s major prevent environmental water from off-river watering and improve Trecommendations for reaching high conservation value management for environmental freshwater ecosystems. floodplains and downstream areas. outcomes.
• Undertake a systematic • Establish a ‘waterway guardians’ assessment of the condition program to offer incentives to Environmental flows of Victorian aquifers, including landholders with significant identification of linkages between conservation assets on private • Establish sustainable groundwater and surface water, land adjacent to crown water environmental flow targets based and establish base-level data for frontage or with privately owned on ecological criteria for surface ongoing monitoring and to inform frontages with high conservation water and groundwater systems. management. values to manage these areas for conservation. • Purchase water entitlements in a • Develop watering strategies staged program, aiming to reliably to protect and recover flood- • Strategically add riparian areas achieve sustainable environmental dependent natural values on that meet conservation criteria (for flow targets. floodplains. Priority sites should biodiversity values, connectivity include those with threatened and management integrity) to the • In over-allocated rivers, accord taxa, high species richness, national park and conservation high security and reliability to colonial breeding sites or corridors system, and manage them environmental water and use this important for movement of biota, accordingly. water to improve natural flow and sites in poor condition with variability, including natural flood the potential to recover significant • For areas in moderate to good frequencies and high and low natural values. condition but not suitable for flows. addition to the national park and conservation system, issue a • Remove legal and other barriers conservation licence that specifies to environmental watering of Riparian protection minimum management actions, wetlands on private land. such as fencing, stock removal or • Establish a ‘special offer’ grazing regimes and weed control. • Establish a program to assistance program to crown strategically remove barriers, water frontage licence holders • Enforce Victoria’s laws to prevent
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS | 37 Riparian land repair has multiple benefits
Bank erosion at Bridles Bend on the Lower Genoa River, East Gippsland in 1989.
unauthorised activities on riparian • Systematically identify freshwater targets and reporting regimes. public land. Cancel licences refugia likely to facilitate survival where there is evidence of no of organisms under threat from • Require land use planning improvement or no action to climate change and provide them schemes to contain wetland improve conditions. with a high level of protection. overlays to prohibit destruction or modification of high- • Cancel riparian grazing licences • Create freshwater reference areas value wetlands, as identified where there is evidence of under the Reference Areas Act to by catchment management significant damage or no optimise protection of freshwater authorities and including all improvement or lack of action to ecosystems which are highly intact Ramsar sites. improve conditions. and have high biodiversity. • Use the Flora and Fauna Guarantee • Provide funding of $20 million • Review and revamp the Heritage Act to protect high value wetlands per year for four years to Rivers Act, including by extending that provide habitat for threatened accelerate the implementation it to wetlands, improving its species by declaring them as of good management and assist capacity to prevent damaging critical habitat and, where they are landholders to take positive steps land use changes, and requiring under imminent threat, by issuing to repair, restore and protect monitoring. interim conservation orders. riparian lands. • Protect the 16 ‘representative • Protect all Ramsar wetland sites rivers’ recommended by the Land on public land within the national Conservation Council in 1991 by park estate. Freshwater protected areas amending the Heritage Rivers Act or by protecting them in the • Amend the Water Act to include all • Develop a state-wide process for conservation estate. natural wetlands on private land in classifying freshwater communities the definition of ‘waterway’. (akin to terrestrial vegetation communities) and systematically Wetlands identify high priority areas for Catchment management protection by applying criteria • Develop a Victorian wetlands for assigning biodiversity and strategy that sets policy goals, • Strengthen catchment conservation value. management strategies, including
38 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Bridles Bend after stock removal and habitat restoration, 2009.
by adopting an ecosystem-based animals. Complement these approach, identifying clear targets measures with education to and indicators, developing a promote improved management long-term monitoring program practices. and clearly linking catchment management to the health of • Ensure that public land managers marine and coastal environments lead the way in complying with and the Murray River. regional catchment strategies and their catchment condition • Strengthen links between targets developed by catchment catchment management strategies management authorities. and land-use planning.
• Revise and strengthen the Victorian waterway management strategy to define clear regional river health and river restoration indicators and targets.
• Recognise the important role played by streams and their environs in landscape connectivity and as carbon sinks by incorporating them into broader connectivity, restoration and carbon sequestration programs.
• Minimise land use impacts on rivers and streams by removing grazing from sensitive areas, promoting low impact agriculture and controlling weeds and feral
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS | 39 ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE
Governance failings
ictoria has the knowledge, a Victorian government has come Inadequate enforcement: A 2012 wealth and capacity to arrest to an all-of-government approach audit by Victoria’s auditor general Vmost current threats to nature to biodiversity but it has never been found major systemic failings in and restore environmental health, implemented. compliance and enforcement and there are compelling social, of environmental laws by the economic and ethical reasons to do Poor leadership and coordination: environmental and primary industries so. Climate change, with its likely Over the past five years, the agencies. Neither department had a catastrophic impacts on economic, auditor general has reported many comprehensive risk-based approach social and environmental health, instances of inadequate leadership to compliance. amplifies the imperative. and coordination. For example, on marine biosecurity, there was Limited planning: The auditor The current backward trajectories poor coordination between the general has identified many examples on multiple environmental issues environmental and biosecurity of planning failure, including in Victoria are a result of flawed agencies, and no evidence of an that performance indicators are governance systems as well as wilful operational plan to coordinate commonly activity-focused rather anti-environmental choices. From responses to new incursions. than outcome-focused. The state this nature conservation review, and Although the new departmental lacks a current biodiversity strategy, from many other analyses as well structure, which merges the despite it being required under the (including audits by Victoria’s auditor environment and primary industries Fauna and Flora Guarantee Act. general and state of the environment agencies, provides the potential for The abandoned 2010 draft strategy reports) emerges a consistent pattern better coordination, it is likely to acknowledged a lack of clarity of failure to effectively establish result in the greater subsuming of regarding the state’s biodiversity targets and goals. The Catchment and implement the processes environmental priorities in favour of Condition and Management Report and measures needed to achieve resource exploitation. A new structure environmental objectives. 2012 found that the lack of ‘long- is needed. term goals and targets for land Achieving the many essential Weak laws: Victoria’s environmental and water condition…remains a reforms recommended in this laws are complex, fragmented critical weakness’, and the State of review relies on improving the and outdated, and fail to mandate Environment Victoria 2013 found system of laws, implementation sufficient priority for biodiversity that there is no clear articulation of mechanisms, accountability regimes conservation. They have not kept statewide priorities, objectives and and institutional arrangements that pace with changes in community targets. constitute sound environmental governance to address the following attitudes, scientific concepts Inadequate data: Knowledge of deficiencies. and growing threats to the Victorian biodiversity is deficient environment, and lack principles in many areas, including the Lack of integration: Laws, such as ecologically sustainable conservation status and trends of administration, programs and plans development and mechanisms to many species, and the effectiveness are poorly integrated, undermining promote accountability, transparency of different management techniques. the state’s capacity to pursue higher- and public participation. Instead In several audits, the auditor general level strategic objectives, and leading of addressing these shortcomings, identified major deficiencies in to inefficiencies and conflicting the state government has further monitoring, data collection and data objectives. The 2009 land and weakened environmental laws, management. biodiversity white paper, Securing our dismissing essential safeguards as Natural Future, is probably the closest ‘green tape’. Limited disclosure: It is not possible
The 2009 land and biodiversity white paper, Securing our Natural Future, is probably the closest a Victorian government has come to an all-of-government approach to biodiversity but it has never been ‘implemented.
40 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION View from The Gorge, Mount Buffalo National Park. Photo: Geoff Durham to gain a clear understanding of the of performance and not linked environmental objectives in favour of state’s environmental performance to environmentally meaningful commercial interests. Victoria has a from the government’s public measures in state of the environment multitude of admirable environmental reports. In a 2013 audit, the auditor or catchment condition reports. objectives and has achieved much general found that the Department in the past half century or so but Low commitment and priority: The backward environmental trajectories of Environment and Primary preceding problems with governance will continue unless the environment Industries reported on only a subset are all symptomatic of a low level of is accorded much higher priority of performance indicators, and political commitment to the state’s within government. Inadequate primarily on outputs and activities environmental objectives, particularly funding for essential environmental rather than outcomes. State agency when they are perceived to be in functions is also symptomatic of a performance measures in the annual conflict with economic goals. There low commitment. budget papers are poor measures has been an increasing rollback of
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE | 41 Governance reform priorities
ntegration and modernisation: communities were listed as of an increasing flow of invasive Victoria’s complex, fragmented, threatened under the FFG Act. species into Victoria. The most Ioutdated and weak system of laws Although this is a grim figure, it does rational institutional arrangement has resulted from an incremental not represent a genuine measure of is a joint agricultural-environmental accumulation over the past three threatened biodiversity since listings biosecurity unit. The environment decades rather than systematic are not systematic. The departmental minister and agency should have consideration of how to achieve the advisory lists of threatened species primary responsibility for decisions, state’s environmental objectives. A list almost twice as many taxa (1087) policy and programs relevant to new consolidated law – a Victorian and there is too little data on another environmental biosecurity. Although Environment and Conservation 350 to advise on their status. Contrary Victoria’s environment is already Act – is proposed to provide a to the promise implicit in the name of heavily burdened with invasive comprehensive framework for the FFG Act and in its objects, listings species, a growing problem is conservation, to integrate existing seem to guarantee nothing much at guaranteed by an inadequate focus laws on vegetation, biodiversity all. The act requires preparation of an on prevention. Rather than banning and wildlife, and to apply modern action statement ‘as soon as possible’ just a few high-priority invasive principles and tools of environmental but more than half of listed species species, Victoria needs to move to a law. The new act should: and communities and more than ‘permitted list’ approach for all non- two-thirds of threatening processes indigenous species, which prohibits • include principles and duties that lack one. There are no appropriate introductions and sales unless they build on ecologically sustainable performance measures to indicate have been assessed as ‘safe’ (at development (ESD) around whether action statements have been low risk of becoming invasive). The ecological integrity, adaptive effective. declaration of non-permitted species management, evidence-based should be systematic and based on decision-making, collaborative The ‘flora and fauna guarantee criteria consistent with ecological decision-making, integrated strategy’ required by the FFG Act sustainability and advice by a planning and action, accountability is 17 years old; the declaration scientific committee that includes and proportionality of ‘critical habitat’ (to protect ecologists. Biosecurity laws should threatened species habitat) has include best practice environmental • provide for processes to develop been used just once in 25 years; tools such as a broad duty of care strategies and plans at appropriate and ‘interim conservation orders’ to requirement, use of the precautionary temporal and spatial scales, protect critical habitat have never principle, and accountability and effective instruments for been used. Compliance monitoring measures. implementing them and enforcement have been very • clarify roles and responsibilities limited. The auditor general and of different agencies and the Environment Defenders Office (Victoria) have each made several Institutional structures and organisations, and guarantee processes monitoring, evaluation, recommendations to improve the accountability and public FFG Act, which VNPA endorses. Legal Given the complexity, breadth, and participation. reforms need to be complemented social and political challenges of by substantial funding increases for environmental issues, it is important Biodiversity law: Victoria’s primary essential functions. to optimise governance structures to law to protect biodiversity – the Flora deliver high priority environmental and Fauna Guarantee Act (FFG Act) – Biosecurity: Victoria needs a new biosecurity law to give appropriate outcomes. A new structure is needs to be properly implemented to needed for Victoria’s environmental ensure that listed threatened species priority to preventing new invasive species and provide institutional and sustainability agencies to and communities and threatening better focus their work on meeting structures and tools to manage processes genuinely reflect the status their obligations and community existing invasive threats more of biodiversity and trigger effective expectations. The following principles effectively. Biosecurity policy has planning and action to reverse threats should apply: and declines. More effective tools are been primarily developed from an needed to protect critical habitats, agricultural perspective and the law • Define lines of responsibility so that prevent threats and assist adaptation administered by the agricultural each agency has clear objectives, to climate change. agency while the environmental functions and targets. agency attempts to manage the As of mid-2013, 667 taxa and environmental consequences
42 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION PROPOSED STRUCTURE: CONSERVATION & SUSTAINABILITY AGENCIES / ORGANISATIONS
NATURE VICTORIA COMMUNITIES & LANDSCAPES PRODUCTION VICTORIA Conservation management and VICTORIA Support of production within an delivery Landscape management within an environmental framework environmental framework
All public lands in national Fire and floods Fisheries park and conservation system Water management Native forestry (in transition) Biodiversity Climate Plantation forestry Melbourne parks and other Biosecurity Farming reserves Other public land management Mining STATE AGENCIES GOVERNMENT STATE Data collection and monitoring Scientific research Scientific research
ENVIRONMENTAL NATIVE VEGETATION ENVIRONMENTAL VICTORIAN REGULATOR REGULATOR AUDIT OFFICE ENVIRONMENTAL Enforcement of Native vegetation regulation Independent reviews of ASSESSMENT COUNCIL environmental laws environmental performance Investigations on public and private land REVIEW BODIES
Native vegetation Assessments State of environment Land investigations reporting Wildlife & threatened Monitoring Bioregional assessments species Auditing of implementation Offset schemes Recommendations for of laws & policies Pollution & waste conservation INDEPENDENT REGULATORY & & INDEPENDENT REGULATORY Advice for policies Inquiries & foresighting Foresty & fisheries Information management Rivers & water
TRUST FOR NATURE MARINE & COASTAL AUTHORITY CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT Facilitating private land Marine & coastal planning & AUTHORITIES conservation management Coordinating catchment management
Covenant & stewardship services Marine & coastal strategy Regional strategies & plans Reserve management Statutory planning Partnerships Revolving fund Marine management Environmental programs Land for Wildlife extension Marine disasters Monitoring Conservation management networks OTHER INDEPENDENT BODIES OTHER Environmental market services
• Separate regulatory roles from statements and strategic plans. auditor, and independent bodies for policy setting and management to private land conservation, coastal and avoid conflicts of interest and foster • Establish accountability measures marine management, environmental impartial and consistent decision- including transparency, regular investigations and catchment making. reporting and independent audits management. of performance. • Maximise the independence These institutions need to be of environmental regulators to The proposed new structure, which guided by targets that define a minimise interference. includes existing bodies, consists measurable pathway to improving of state government agencies the natural condition of Victoria, • Embed ecological sustainability for delivery of conservation and and their performance should be and biodiversity conservation as sustainability functions, independent independently audited and assessed core principles for all government regulators for native vegetation in each state of the environment departments through their management and enforcement of report. enabling legislation, mission environmental laws, an independent
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE | 43 Local government: Although local Diversity, but the Commonwealth has Climate change: With heat governments have considerable no direct legal means to intervene waves and catastrophic bushfires environmental responsibilities under when state governments disregard forewarning us of the momentous state planning laws, they often do not their management obligations or changes that climate change will have access to sufficient expertise or seek to undermine the integrity of bring to Victoria’s environment and resources to meet their obligations, national parks. Environment groups economy, now is the time to do and lack sufficient planning tools. For have recommended that national our utmost to foster resilience and example, there is no conservation parks become a ‘matter of national adaptation in nature and human zoning available to protect land environmental significance’ under society. This should be a high priority outside the national park and federal environment laws. Given the across all government agencies conservation system. There should biodiversity importance of protected and programs. Victoria should be be greater alignment with catchment areas, there are also good reasons responding to the threat of climate management, with local government for the federal government to fund change by: plans incorporating catchment special management programs in management planning priorities. The national parks. To limit the problem • reducing the state’s greenhouse state government should encourage of cost shifting, funding should be gas emissions (mitigation), including by conserving natural the development of local biodiversity made available under a proposed carbon sinks such as forests, action plans by offering matching ‘natural icons resilience program’ for seagrass meadows and streams, funds for implementation. initiatives that go beyond ‘duty of and by preventing harmful carbon- care’ and for cross-border programs emitting activities such as logging, Compliance: In 2009 the Victorian and works to foster climate change land clearing, and severe burning Competition and Efficiency adaptation. Commission found that compliance regimes with vegetation laws was not • ensuring that responses to climate monitored even though illegal change – eg new crops, products clearing was widely assumed to occur, Planning and priorities and services, and increasing and a 2012 audit by the auditor Planning: There has been far too demands for resources such as general found major systemic failings little strategic planning, resulting water – are ecologically sustainable in enforcement of environmental in an ad hoc and fragmented laws. Relevant agencies should approach to biodiversity conservation • reducing current threats to nature develop and publish a compliance in Victoria. There is no current and improving habitat quality monitoring and enforcement policy biodiversity strategy, no plans for to promote resilience to climate for all environmental laws, and about half of the listed threatened change publicly report on enforcement species and out-of-date management activity and outcomes. Independence • fostering adaptation to climate plans for many protected areas. of enforcement functions from change, including by protecting Many existing plans lack integration potentially conflicting roles in refugia and representative habitats. across sectors, across marine, coastal government, such as policy and terrestrial environments, and formulation and industry support, At particular risk in the near term across public and private tenures. An are alpine, moist and coastal is essential for effectiveness and urgent priority is to develop a nature habitats, and species with low credibility. This is best achieved conservation strategy that matches ecological tolerances, specialised by establishing an independent aspirations for nature conservation requirements, low genetic variability, Environmental Regulator. with well-defined targets and long generation times, poor dispersal effective measures, and harnesses the ability or narrow geographic ranges. capacities of both government and The national park and conservation Federal-state relations on community to drive conservation at system has a central role to play protected areas landscape and seascape scales across in helping nature adapt to climate public and private land tenures. Best change. This includes safeguarding The federal government should play a practice accountability measures climate refuges for sites providing stronger role in protected area policy are required, such as independent temporary refuge (during climatic and management. Well-managed auditing of outcomes and regular extremes and ecological disturbance) protected areas are essential to fulfil reviews. Departmental performance and for sites providing long-term Australia’s international obligations targets should be closely aligned to refuge for species with contracting under the Convention on Biological targets in the biodiversity strategy. ranges.
44 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Funding
he failure to invest sufficient environmental obligations as well as both traditional and new sources. public funds to arrest the costing of current unsustainable In recognition that environmental Tenvironmental decline in practices. Long-term investments health is essential to the state’s Victoria is exacting enormous are needed for long-term problems. future and underpins economic and economic as well as environmental The following principles should be social wellbeing, a certain proportion and social costs. There needs to applied to funding decisions. of the state budget should be be much greater recognition that guaranteed for environmental and the natural environment provides • Establish clear links between conservation functions, based on essential services, and directly and policy and funding, so that policy an audit of core funding needs indirectly sustains the Victorian is translated into actions and to fulfil essential environmental economy. Otherwise, future outcomes. functions that arise from national Victorians will inherit further loss of and international commitments. This natural capital and spiralling costs • Commit resources for ecologically review proposes the establishment for restoration and threat mitigation. realistic timeframes. of a Victorian biodiversity fund to support programs necessary to • Allocate ‘core funding’, with long- Only a small proportion of build the resilience of Victoria’s term security, to central elements the Victorian budget goes to ecosystems. New or expanded of public land management, rather support nature conservation, sources of funding should be than short-cycle ‘initiative’ funding. and government agencies are investigated, including lotteries unable to meet their fundamental • Identify the core environmental and levies such as a bed tax from environmental obligations. For functions of government – those tourism. example, Parks Victoria receives required under treaties, legislation, funding equivalent to just 0.6% regulation and policy – that should of the state budget, including be funded by government, to budget allocations and funds Knowledge needs ensure that funding obtained from from the Parks and Reserves Trust external, non-public sources is (see graph, page 46). This level of A consistent theme in this review is used to enhance these functions funding for managing about 18% inadequate baseline information and and not replace them. of the state’s land area and 5% of insufficient monitoring to evaluate whether policies and programs are marine waters budget is equivalent • Make funding decisions to that for a medium-sized local achieving their goals. Much better transparent, with details available knowledge of Victorian biodiversity government area, and equivalent to for public review. the cost of about a cup of coffee per and management effectiveness is required. This in turn will require Victorian per month. Conservation • Avoid funding or subsidising improving expertise and skills expenditure on national parks is activities that undermine within the biodiversity sector, and actually substantially less than that, environmental objectives. for about a third of Parks Victoria’s conducting long-term monitoring budget is for managing 5000 • Include realistic in-kind and and research programs. hectares of metropolitan parks and volunteer contributions in Knowledge of Victorian biodiversity a considerable portion is spent on programs and ensure there is is very poor for (1) the conservation managing visitors and facilities. sufficient budget to support, train status and trajectories of biodiversity, and encourage volunteers. Essential to environmental particularly for neglected groups planning is the realistic costing of Conservation in Victoria requires such as fungi, non-vascular plants actions needed to fulfil Victoria’s substantially more funding – from and invertebrates, (2) ecological
The total cost of management of Victoria’s national parks and conservation estate equates to about the cost of one cup of coffee per ‘citizen once a month.
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE | 45 Funding for Parks Victoria as a percentage of the state budget
0.8%
0.6%
0.4%
0.2%
0.0%
2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012
Note: Funding from state government sources as a percentage of the state budget, 2000-2013. The funding includes state government budget allocations to Parks Victoria and funding from the Parks & Reserves Trust.
requirements of taxa and the and oceanography. Emerging such as VNPA’s Reef Watch and threats to them, (3) interactions issues, particularly climate change, Nature Watch, Parks Victoria’s Sea between taxa, communities and require additional skills. Some Search, and Birdlife Australia’s bird abiotic elements (soil, groundwater, gaps can be addressed by more atlas project. Apart from collecting atmosphere) and ecological resources; others, such as the valuable data, citizen science processes, (4) the effectiveness of dearth of taxonomists, will need programs offer benefits that derive different management techniques programs to attract and support from meaningful involvement of for different situations and (5) the next generation of scientists. people in positive environmental conservation assets on private lands. Environmental management also activities. It is important to be clear needs to be bolstered by greater use about the ways in which community Managing the natural environment of expert advisory bodies such as for science programs can help address requires high-level expertise and management of national parks. knowledge needs, to ensure data diverse skills. Several reviews quality and to provide resources and have identified a lack of these in More comprehensive and training. state and local governments that meaningful monitoring is essential limit their capacity to fulfil their for tracking the status of biodiversity Much of the environmental obligations. Long-term funding and evaluating outcomes of information accumulated by and deficiencies have been exacerbated management. ‘It is critical that for the state government is either by recent budget and staff cuts, baseline monitoring is improved difficult or impossible to access. A and organisational knowledge and a stable, long-term source of centralised reporting system and has declined due to outsourcing funding to support this monitoring reporting protocols are needed and rapid staff turnover. Losses in is ensured,’ said the 2013 state of the to optimise the value and use of expertise can take a long time to environment report. A gap analysis environmental information. reverse. There are major expertise is recommended to identify priority gaps, particularly for neglected monitoring needs. groups such as invertebrates and fungi, for neglected habitats such Community groups and citizens as groundwater, and in particular have been increasingly contributing disciplines such as taxonomy to monitoring, through programs
46 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION Location of VNPA five priority clusters
NaturePrint: Strategic Natural Values
High contribution of Natural Values National parks and conservation system (public lands) VNPA priority clusters | Trust for Nature reserves | Private land (white transparent) | | | | Low contribution of Natural Values
Priority landscape clusters
his nature conservation review the national park and conservation • Encourage conservation has made a large number of system, as well as adjacent marine management for private Trecommendations, and some areas subject to major threats. Over lands: Prevent further clearing prioritisation of focus is needed. A the next 10 to 20 years the following or degrading uses, promote handful of areas in Victoria stand outcomes are sought for each of conservation management out as having very high conservation these clusters: (secured by perpetual values and facing high threats. By conservation covenants or similar grouping them into regional clusters, • Completion of the reserve means), enhance connectivity and the case for action is made clearer system on public lands: Expand restore habitats. and more compelling. the national park and conservation • A focus for community action: The five ‘priority clusters’ shown system to prevent threats (logging, Support the community to be in the map above encompass mining, agriculture, fishing in involved in advocacy, on-ground substantial areas with high-value marine areas and other intensive works and citizen science; and biodiversity and intact vegetation uses) and improve management of foster public awareness, access to that have poor representation in public lands. information and engagement.
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE | 47 Overview of future directions
his is a brief summary of minister in developing policy and • Encourage local governments to some of the review’s major administering regulations for prepare local biodiversity action Trecommendations for environmentally relevant invasive plans, and offer matching funds environmental governance. species. for implementation of these plans. • Provide a statutory mechanism under the planning system Environmental laws Institutional structures and or local government laws for processes local governments to achieve • Develop new consolidated permanent protection of council legislation – a Victorian • Restructure Victoria’s institutions lands with high conservation Environment and Conservation for conservation and natural values. Act – to provide a comprehensive resource management to establish framework for conservation of clear lines of accountability, • Strengthen the implementation biodiversity and ecologically to separate regulatory roles of catchment management plans sustainable management of from policy setting and by aligning local government vegetation, wildlife and public management and to maximise the land-use planning with catchment lands. independence of environmental management priorities. • Reform the Flora and Fauna regulators. Guarantee Act, including in ways • Set outcome-focused and recommended by the auditor Planning and priorities measurable targets to define a general and the Environment pathway for improving the natural Defenders Office (now • Develop a nature conservation condition of Victoria. Incorporate Environmental Justice Australia), strategy that includes long-term and incorporate it into the new five-year rolling targets into state measurable targets that can be Environment and Conservation budget portfolio service delivery adapted as conditions change or Act. Essential reforms include an targets and agency director as monitoring suggests changes improved and accelerated process performance agreements, and are required, strategies to drive to identify and list threatened independently audit agency conservation at landscape and biodiversity and threatening performance against these targets. seascape scales, a mixture of processes, and to develop, conservation tools including • Embed ecological sustainability implement and review action plans regulation and market-based and biodiversity conservation as for recovery. initiatives, strategies across public core principles for all departments and private land tenures, and a • Amend the federal Environment through their enabling legislation, commitment to long-term funding. Protection and Biodiversity mission statements and strategic Conservation Act to make national plans. • Provide the resources necessary parks and other protected areas a for the environment department matter of national environmental • Expand the role of the Victorian to systematically list threatened significance, requiring Environmental Assessment species, ecological communities Commonwealth assessment of any Council to advise on priorities and threatening processes, and activities likely to have a significant for both private and public land develop action plans for all listed impact on protected areas. conservation and planning. entities within five years.
• Develop new biosecurity • Strengthen the compliance • Ensure that all protected areas legislation to more effectively framework for environmental have up-to-date management manage invasive species that laws by developing whole-of- plans and publicly accessible web-based maps and information threaten the natural environment. department and specific regulator about their values. It should include a permitted compliance monitoring and (safe) list approach to define enforcement policies, identifying • For climate change mitigation, which non-indigenous taxa can and monitoring high compliance identify carbon sequestration be introduced, sold, moved risks, improving oversight of opportunities that complement or kept in Victoria, and a compliance functions and publicly biodiversity protection and lead role for the environment reporting on activities and restoration. department and environment outcomes.
48 | VICTORIAN NATIONAL PARKS ASSOCIATION • Investigate and implement • Increase funding for conservation. • Ensure that collection, storage measures to preserve the To identify core funding needs, and management of information biodiversity values of the national conduct an audit of essential are subject to standard protocols park and conservation system environmental functions and guidelines, and that the under climate change, including by arising from national and information is freely accessible to expanding the area and improving international commitments, all users. its management, encompassing including recovery of threatened • Establish a long-term ecological refugia, linking up the national biodiversity and mitigation of monitoring network to track park estate along environmental threatening processes. Make conditions and trends in gradients, addressing the long- long-term funding commitments ecosystem components and term viability of threatened to guarantee conservation processes, especially those most species, building the knowledge management over ecologically susceptible to climate change. base about impacts of climate relevant timeframes. change, and developing national • Identify priority gaps in park specific or regional climate • In recognition that a healthy information collection and adaptation plans. environment is essential to monitoring through consultation Victoria’s future and underpins with the biodiversity sector. • Adopt a ‘foresighting’ approach to economic and social health, planning for climate change, and allocate a defined proportion of • Implement statewide standards plan for possible outcomes taking the state budget to maintaining to be developed by the proposed account of potential interactions and restoring Victoria’s Environmental Audit Office for and worst-case scenarios. environment. the collection, management and dissemination of environmental • Conduct research into responses • Increase the transparency of data and reports. of species and communities funding arrangements, including to climate change, particularly for management of the public management approaches and reserve system and the allocation techniques to facilitate adaptation of resources for different functions The full report is and persistence. such as visitor and facility approximately 300 pages, is management and conservation. fully referenced and includes • Establish a natural icons resilience 163 recommendations across program at the Commonwealth marine, coastal, freshwater level with funding for and terrestrial environments. management of strictly protected Knowledge needs You can download it from: areas on public or private lands www.vnpa.org.au that goes beyond ‘duty of care’ • Conduct a training needs or ‘baseline management’ and for assessment by auditing the special programs to improve the skills and expertise within the resilience and conservation value biodiversity sector, especially of protected areas. of state and local government personnel and contractors. Address skills and expertise gaps at all levels. Funding • Maintain a fixed proportion of • Establish a Victorian biodiversity departmental budgets to employ fund to improve environmental research staff and run research program delivery, manage public programs. conservation reserves and build the resilience of ecosystems. • Support the community to Investigate potential sources of undertake scientifically robust revenue, including lotteries and monitoring by providing expert new or expanded charges and advice and feedback, protocols to levies such as a ‘bed tax’ from ensure the data is effectively used tourism. and publicly accessible databases.
NATURE CONSERVATION REVIEW ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE | 49 Address: Level 3, 60 Leicester Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053. Phone: 03 9347 5188 | Email: [email protected] | Website: www.vnpa.org.au