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Brynn Mathews 7 September 2018 Committee Secretary Senate

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Brynn Mathews 7 September 2018 Committee Secretary Senate Brynn Mathews 7 September 2018 Committee Secretary Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications PO Box 6100 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 [email protected] Re: Australia’s faunal extinction crisis – Senate Inquiry I appreciate the extension of the submission date for this inquiry, which has allowed me to make this submission. I have many years of experience of working with the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) as an employee of the Qld Department of Environment and, since retirement, as an environmental activist concerned for the protection and survival of many of the unique flora and fauna of far north Queensland. I have also served for many years on the management committee of the Environmental Defenders Office of Northern Queensland, which has given me an insight into the legal structure of the EPBC Act and how it fails to protect rare flora and fauna species. In particular I have serious concerns about: 1. the inadequacy of the listing process to protect newly discovered species that are endemic to only small areas; and 2. the weakness of the controlled action listing process due to the “significance” assessment process and the ability of people to carry out self assessments and decide that an activity is not notifiable as a controlled action. 3. the lack of implementation, or any obligation on the different levels of government to do so, for Species Recovery Plans. I will address my concerns with several case studies. 1. The Listing Process: Case Study 1: Haines Orange Mangrove (Bruguiera hainesii) In April 2016 local explorer, Hidetoshi Kudo made the remarkable discovery of Haines Orange Mangrove (Bruguiera hainesii) in mangroves adjacent to Trinity Inlet, Cairns. The species is largely unknown in the southern hemisphere, and had never been previously recorded in Australia. It is listed as rare and endangered on the IUCN Red List, and according to the records, less than 200 of the plants had previously been found on the planet. Dr Norm Duke, an international mangrove scientist with TropWATER at James Cook University, visited the site and confirmed that Mr Kudo found another 50 of the rare mangroves in Cairns. After his surveys, Dr Duke confirmed the new species as one previously found in numbers only in Singapore, the Malay Peninsula, and a couple of Page 1 of 5 isolated locations in New Guinea. Dr Duke discovered another occurrence in the Solomons a few years back – but only as a single tree. The mature plants were found in dense mangroves bordering Trinity Inlet amongst a populated area with urban bikeways, parklands, controlled drainage channels and cleared high voltage power line access pathways. This area is adjacent to proposed road and bridge works on Ray Jones Drive, Cairns that are in an area also found to contain more specimens of the Haines Orange mangrove. Dr Duke said it had been thought that the mangroves of Trinity Inlet had been well surveyed and explored. “But, quite obviously, they weren’t! These findings confirm how our botanical knowledge is so blatantly incomplete when someone can stumble across two new species of trees in such a populated place. Who knows what other additional species might be out there?” A subsequent survey of an area of mangroves in an area to be cleared for a proposed new boat ramp adjacent to the Yorkey’s Knob Boating Club found more specimens, some 16 kilometres north of the first discovery. This species is currently going through the listing process with responses to the consultation document only closing on 20 July 2018. However, this unique discovery of a significant population of a globally endangered species currently has no protection from destruction in two locations where mangrove clearing is proposed. Any harm to it will not be a controlled action and able to be regulated until it is formally listed as a threatened species under the EPBC Act. Case Study 2: Eungella honeyeater (Bolemoreus hindwoodi) The Eungella honeyeater is Mackay’s only endemic bird species. It has only been found in the Eungella National Park and the adjacent Cathu and Crediton State Forests west of Mackay in the Clarke Range. Along with other honeyeater species there, they play an important ecological role in keeping these forests healthy by eating lerps, (larvae of the psyllid insect with a high carbohydrate covering). They are also a pollinator of native tree and vine species as they transfer nectar between their flowers. Earlier data from surveys conducted since 1998 recorded a dramatic drop from 60 to a maximum of 10 birds per survey in 2007. The most likely cause was believed to be a significant drop in the flowering density of the woodland trees. This was possibly due to a decrease in larger rainfall events since 1991. Despite this population decline, and listing as vulnerable under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act, in 2014 the assessment committee rejected a nomination for inclusion in the EPBC Act list of threatened species. The committee decided that the severity of the declines and the scale and impacts from the identified threats of mining exploration, logging and encroaching habitation were unclear, which appears to be totally ignoring the precautionary principle. The Department of Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry (DAFF) approved the resumption of logging in the Cathu and Crediton State Forests in 2013, more than a decade after logging ceased. This logging was expected to have a significant impact on the population of the Eungella Honeyeater due to reduction of feeding habitat. Page 2 of 5 Consequently the Mackay Conservation Group partnered with Birdlife Australia, Birdlife Mackay and other volunteers for the three winters, 2014-2016, to monitor the impacts of logging on the Eungella Honeyeater and other honeyeaters in the state forests surrounding Eungella National Park west of Mackay in the Clarke Range. The results of the 2014-2016 monitoring found Eungella Honeyeater numbers were much lower, ranging from zero to just a few per site near the logging operations, and significantly higher at the third monitoring plot which was well removed from the logging. In 2016 a sample site near the logged sites that was similar in tree density to the logged sites was monitored. Results showed that there were more Eungella Honeyeaters in the unlogged lower tree density sites than in the logged sites, although numbers were still lower than in the monitoring site with higher tree density, reinforcing the proposition that selective logging was having an impact because it reduces tree density. There was also a strong linear correlation between numbers of Eungella Honeyeaters recorded through 2015 and tree density with none recorded once tree density falls below 10 per hectare. Whilst the logging operations in the Cathu and Crediton State Forests have been shown to have an impact on Eungella honeyeater populations, there was no opportunity for this logging to be assessed as a controlled action as long as this species is not listed as threatened under the EPBC Act. The time taken for the listing process all to readily creates an opportunity for an already declining species to become even more threatened and closer to extinction before any threats to it can be dealt with as controlled actions. 2. The Available Controls Under the EPBC Act Fail to Protect Listed Species: Case Study: Spectacled Flying Fox (Pteropus conspicillatus) Cairns CBD Camp The Spectacled Flying Fox (Pteropus conspicillatus) has been very badly served by the EPBC Act since it’s listing as vulnerable in August 2001. This species was even considered for delisting in 2013 and 2014 on the basis that the banning of electric grids to protect crops by the Queensland government had removed a significant cause of mortality. However, monitoring data from the four-year National Flying Fox Monitoring Program, which commenced in 2012, showed a continued decline in population and the committee kept it on the list. More recently the scientific assessment committee has advised the Minister that the listing of this animal should be changed from vulnerable to endangered on the basis of a continued population decline. This recommendation is, as far as I know, still sitting on the Ministers desk where it has been for almost two years. A National Recovery Plan (NRP) for the Pteropus conspicillatus was adopted on 21 April 2011 and the Cairns CBD camp, centred on the Cairns library, was subsequently identified as a nationally important camp. Action 5.3 of the NRP refers to the protection of vegetation within flying fox camps and the surrounding buffer zones using protocols such as local government environmental plans and development assessments, natural resource management plans and voluntary conservation agreements. None of which has been applied to this camp, which has suffered the loss of some 80% of the roost trees available to this camp only five years ago with even more roost trees being removed as recently as Monday 3rd September on the Novotel Oasis Resort site. Page 3 of 5 Since 2013 the agencies responsible for the EPBC Act, the Nature Conservation Act and local government planning have all signed off on a series of tree removals and new developments that has placed this camp under extreme stress, resulting in an unprecedented number of abandoned and dead baby flying foxes over the last 2017- 18 breeding season. This has also placed a lot of stress on local wildlife carers. The Federal Department of the Environment has ruled that many of these actions weren’t controlled actions because they failed the “Significance” test. Even when an action was declared controlled the conditions applied were incapable of protecting the flying foxes as they failed to prevent the stress that resulted in elevated infant mortality rates.
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