New report calls for urgent reforms to protect threatened species and habitats
Updated ,first published
A new report aimed at turning the tide on Western Australia’s “biodiversity crisis” calls for urgent action.
And according to the Conservation Council of WA, the rate at which the state’s native vegetation is being cleared is of immediate concern, with 51,000 hectares approved by the state government and new applications for another 128,000 hectares.
On Thursday, the state’s top conservation authority announced Returning from the Abyss: The Nature Conservation AgendaIt sets out 36 recommendations for government action.
Recommendations include calls to expand the Environmental Protection Authority’s strategic assessments, review the Biodiversity Conservation Act, limit the use of environmental offsets and review the prescribed burning program in WA’s south-west.
CCWA chief executive Matt Roberts said the report included “real-life examples where policy is currently failing nature, with recommendations for urgent change from experts across the environmental movement”.
Roberts said the Swan Coastal Plain had seen “serious degradation” over time, but “huge tracts of land” cleared for mining in the Pilbara were often overlooked.
“When we hear that we need some kind of fast track system for the industry, we find that there is no brake on openness in this case,” he said.
The report was developed with conservation groups, Aboriginal leaders and environmental experts as a “collaborative roadmap” for a series of reforms.
The impact of the clearing on threatened species such as black cockatoos in the south-west and the northern hoodoo and ghost bat in the Pilbara was at the heart of the council’s concerns.
Roberts pointed to reforms to the federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the memorandum of understanding signed by Environment Minister Murray Watt and WA Premier Roger Cook in April as examples of paving the way for a system that prioritizes approvals at the expense of proper assessment.
“The reality is that we’re also hearing rhetoric about trying to balance nature against industry and how we can achieve that,” he said.
“We have clearly failed to achieve this in WA for decades.
“What we’re saying here is that if you really want to get this balance right, or if you want a balance, these 36 recommendations, these are the balance at the other end of the scale.”
Professor Kingsley Dixon, School of Biological Sciences at the University of Western Australia, said the report brought together scientists and the public “in a common call that we are one minute to midnight for so much of nature’s extraordinary survival over tens of millions of years”.
“We have more biodiversity than 98 percent of other countries, but our nature is disintegrating before our eyes,” he said.
Suggestions Conservation Agenda Roberts said there were no “unreasonable demands.”
But they were also not “something that could easily fit into the motto of rapid progress or keeping the engine room running.”
“But these are the reforms needed to bring balance back to nature,” he said.
Recommendations for protecting critical and remnant habitats included “well-proven and feasible buffer zones” and a moratorium on clearing in any local government authority where native vegetation is “critically low.”
It also called for early filtering of projects that are unlikely to be environmentally acceptable before they come before the EPA; For the Ministry of Biodiversity, Conservation and Arts to publish biodiversity inspections; and strengthening mine site rehabilitation and environmental compliance.
Providing greater protections to ensure the EPA’s independence and authority to evaluate greenhouse gas emissions when making assessments were also among the recommendations.
Responding to the report’s release on Thursday, Chamber of Mines and Energy WA chief executive Aaron Morey called against policies that divert investment away from Australia to countries with weaker environmental standards.
“The WA resources sector supports the Paris Agreement and reducing emissions to net zero by 2050 at the latest,” Morey said.
“We also support regulatory reforms designed to improve outcomes for both the environment and business.
“Global demand for iron ore, LNG, alumina, gold, critical minerals and the wide range of commodities needed to support modern economies will be met in one place.
“Policy choices that direct investment to countries with weaker environmental, emissions, safety and heritage standards will reduce the living standards of all Western Australians and lead to worse outcomes for the planet.”
On the issue of prescribed burning in the southwestern part of the state, Roberts acknowledged it was a “divisive debate” but evolving technology meant a debate around the practice was necessary.
“It is not a simple solution as saying burn this, burn this, burn this,” he said.
“But I can say that the practices implemented so far have led to situations such as the irreversible destruction of important trees.
“And there have been fires that have exceeded the barriers they put in place in trying to meet quotas and have had serious impacts on our landscapes in the southwest.”
