Submission in Response to the Inquiry Into the Management of Public Land in New South Wales
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Submission in response to the Inquiry into the management of public land in New South Wales BirdLife Australia August 2012 Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................. 2 General Introductory Comments................................................................................... 2 1 The conversion of Crown Land, State Forests and agricultural land into National Park estate or other types of conservation reserve… ............................................................................ 4 1 a. Process of conversion and the assessment of potential operational, economic, social and environmental impacts........................................................................................................6 1 b. Operational, economic, social and environmental impacts after conversion, and in particular, impacts upon neighbours of public land and upon Local Government .........................................6 1 c. That the following cases be considered in relation to 1a and 1b: River Red Gum State Forests in the southern Riverina; Native Hardwood State Forests in Northern NSW; Yanga Station in Wakool shire; Toorale Station in Bourke shire ............................................................................................7 2 The adherence to management practices on all public land that are mandated for private property holders, including fire, weed and pest management practices............................... 8 3 Examination of models for the management of public land including models that provide for conservation outcomes which utilise the principles of “sustainable use” .............................. 9 4 Any other related matters ......................................................................................... 10 References ................................................................................................................ 11 1 Introduction Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission to the Inquiry into the Management of public land in New South Wales. BirdLife Australia was created following the recent merger of Birds Australia and Bird Observation & Conservation Australia (BOCA). For more than 100 years, Birds Australia and BOCA have been powerful advocates for native birds and the conservation of their habitats. Now, we have joined forces to create BirdLife Australia, the country’s largest organisation devoted to the future of our native birdlife. We are an independent, not-for-profit organisation with over 10,000 members and a single aim: creating a bright future for Australia’s birds. Our submission is framed around some general introductory comments, and then follows headings as per the Inquiry’s terms of reference. Key points are highlighted in bold text throughout the submission. General Introductory Comments Two hundred and thirty eight taxa (types) of Australian Birds are either extinct, threatened with extinction or are near-threatened. The threats to birds and biological diversity are mostly still increasing. Even in the most optimistic scenarios, overnight improvement in the impacts on Australia’s bushlands and wildlife will not be achieved (State of the Environment 2011 Committee 2011, p. 679). An accepted tool for protecting nature is the establishment of protected areas such as national parks, which are set aside for the specific purpose of nature conservation. While this alone is not sufficient to reverse the trends in the decline of Australia’s birds and biodiversity, a full, well-managed protected areas system is a necessary core element of Australia’s nature conservation system (Commonwealth of Australia 2002). Urban, agricultural, pastoral and timber production land uses have brought about significant land management challenges including soil erosion, dryland and irrigation salinity, altered environmental flows, introduction of weeds and the loss and degradation of native vegetation and of the habitat of the birds of New South Wales. Without sustainable land management around and between protected areas, the conservation management within the protected areas themselves will struggle to deliver ideal nature conservation outcomes. Land management is challenging. Not all protected areas are adequately or ideally managed. Not all agricultural lands are adequately or ideally managed, and neither are all urban, timber production or other lands. Pest animal management, weed management, fire management and many other aspects of land management are common challenges across all lands. Depending on the purpose for which land is managed, different emphases will be placed on different aspects of land management (nature conservation will have greatest emphasis in the case of protected areas). No matter what the primary land use objective there are responsibilities and costs which must be met in carrying out sustainable land management. Private and public land managers alike may at times struggle in this regard, leaving a gap between what is considered best practice land management in their sector and the actual standard of land management which they are able to deliver at a given time and place. Private landholders, pushed hard by market forces, often operate in a highly efficient manner in delivering productivity through their land management practices. This delivers agricultural outcomes (and sometimes nature conservation outcomes, where a landholder may also be looking after remnant vegetation or other conservation values on their land) within significant resource constraints. Public land managers suffer similar constraints and achieve similar efficiencies. For many years now efficiency has been a watch-word for management within government departments and agencies. But as 2 any farmer knows, you can only deliver so much if you don’t have the human and financial resources you need, no matter how efficient your operation may be. Public investment in conservation land management, and in public land management more generally, is not yet sufficient in Australia. Despite high-profile programs such as the Natural Heritage Trust and Caring for Our Country, the budgets of those departments and agencies which have primary responsibility for management of conservation lands are comparatively small. With land estates running into the millions of hectares, agencies are set an impossible task in allocating resources “efficiently” towards delivery of best practice land management. Health, education, infrastructure and other budgets are routinely five to ten times larger than those of environment departments, and only a portion of the meagre environment budget is able to be spent on actual public land management. Figure 1 depicts the relative proportion of NSW budget expenses allocated to the various policy areas. The 6% “other” category includes “environment” expenditure (part of which is for public land management) and also includes expenditure on several other policy areas. Housing and General Public Community Services Amenit ies 4% 4% Other 6% Health 27% Other Purposes 7% Social Security and Welfare 8% Public Order and Safety 11% Education 22% Transport and Communication 11% Figure 1: NSW budget expenses 2012-13 by policy area (Source: Government of New South Wales 2012) With the increase in areas gazetted as protected areas over recent decades, anxiety about public land management is now sometimes directed at national parks, as if the gazettal itself had somehow diminished management standards. In fact, gazettal of a protected area in most cases is accompanied by an increase in land management funding and standards, albeit not a sufficient increase to in any way adequately cover the costs of best practice land management across the protected areas estate of NSW. The answer to the tacit question underlying the terms of reference to this Inquiry “Why aren’t our parks and protected areas better managed and better loved” is largely one of public investment in land management. Although Governments often work hard to allocate meagre resources more efficiently, the gap between actual and adequate public land management funding is only ever referred to in the most oblique and guarded terms. Good management of a protected areas estate which is around 40 times the area of Greater Sydney requires a significant investment. BirdLife Australia urges the Committee to look at the “gap” in investment in all public land management compared with what is needed to deliver best practice conservation management, and to make recommendations for increased investment in this area. 3 1 The conversion of Crown Land, State Forests and agricultural land into National Park estate or other types of conservation reserve… Protected areas such as national parks are accepted as of central importance to nature conservation, and have been shown to improve conservation outcomes including reducing the extinction risk of birds (Butchart et al. 2012; Bruner et al. 2001; Nagendra 2008; Australian Government 2009b; Department of Environment and Conservation 2005; Secretariat to the Convention on Biological Diversity 2006; Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council 2010). The establishment of a system of protected areas, having nature conservation as their primary purpose and encompassing the full range of ecosystem types, is central to Australia’s commitments under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. It also underpins the participation of New South Wales in the National Reserve System program to which NSW subscribes