Biodiversity

The protection and conservation of biodiversity is essential for the wellbeing of all life on Earth, including human life. The reduction of Western Australia’s biodiversity has dramatic impacts on the resilience and stability of eocsystems. This includes their capacity to cope with environmental stress including over-clearing, over-fishing, pollution, fire and climate change. The conservation and restoration of natural areas is the only permanent way to protect our biodiversity and threatened species, to ensure we have a healthy and stable life support system.

The South West Ecoregion, one of the planet's biodiversity hotspots is under threat. It is one of only five Mediterranean systems listed as globally significant and it is the only Australian hotspot to be recognised globally¹.
 

Goals

The Greens (WA) want:  

• a Comprehensive Adequate Representative ('CAR') and secure reserve system linked across all bioregions
• proper management of the 'CAR'reserve system with much greater allocation of Government funds as well as greatly increased corporate and private funding
• increased public awareness Western Australia's unique wildlife and  the importance of its conservation
• to restore damaged ecosystems, and re-establish the linkages between remnant vegetation across all bioregions on both private and public land
• removal or mitigation of threats to biodiversity, for example invasive weeds, feral animals, dieback, inappropriate fire regimes and land clearing 

Initiatives

The Greens (WA) will initiate and support legislation and actions that: 

• implement a Biodiversity Conservation Act for Western Australia
• implement a Biodiversity Conservation Strategy for Western Australia
• urgently establish a comprehensive, adequate, representative (CAR) and secure reserve system with linkages across all bioregions and in particular urgently include the Banded Ironstone Formation (BIF) Ranges in the conservation estate as ‘A’ class nature reserves
• strengthen the clearing regulations under the Environmental Protection Act by removal of exemptions and rigorous enforcement of the clearing principles
• prohibit clearing in local government areas with less than 30% native vegetation remaining and prohibit further clearing of vegetation types that are found to be at less than 10% of their pre-European settlement extent
• improve monitoring of illegal clearing and breaches of conditions under the Environmental Protection Act and take legal action where appropriate
• give immediate statutory protection to Threatened Ecological Communities by their declaration under the Wildlife Conservation Act and any new Biodiversity Act
• ensure all potentially threatened species and communities are assessed and protective measures taken
• implement genuine joint management for biodiversity conservation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
• implement recommendations from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA's) Review of the Fire Policies and Management Practises of the Department of Conservation and Land Management
• implement the recommendations of the EPA's Fire Management of the Kimberley and other Rangeland Regions of Western Australia
• improve programes for introduced animal surveillance and control
• fully implement the Environmental Weed Strategy for Western Australia
• prevent the entry of exotic plants into Western Australia and restrict the sale of potential environmental weeds throughout the State
• develop and implement an effective whole of Government approach to reduce the spread of Phytophthora dieback
• give community groups and individuals legal standing to present matters of environmental protection
• provide greater funding for environmental projects and facilitate participation by local communities in planning and implementing strategies to protect the environment
• establish a system of 'biodiversity credits' to place an economic value on protecting and restoring natural areas
• prohibit mining, clearing and land development in conservation reserves and in environmentally sensitive areas
• protect wetlands and ground water dependent ecosystems (see Greens (WA) Wetlands Policy)
• establish a study of genetic diversity at the species level
• ensure funding from the Federal Government's 'Caring for our Country' program is spent on projects that will improve the environment or rehabilitate and ultimately protect degraded environments

The Greens (WA) will lobby the Federal Government to:

• implement the National Strategy for the Conservation of Biological Diversity inside and outside reserves
• list all 'Threatened Ecological Communities' identified by the State Government under the equivalent section of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation 1999 Act
• increase the powers, funding and scope of action for the Federal Environmental Protection Authority enshrine international treaty obligations to maintain biodiversity in Federal legislation.

Footnote
1. Western Australia has 362 threatened plants, 199 threatened animals and 69 threatened ecological communities. Only 20% of our terrestrial subregions meet the objective of 15% or more represented in the current reserve system (State of the Environment Report WA 2007 - pages 120, 122). Only 20% of the terrestrial subregions meet the objective of 15% or more reserved and 11% of the subregions do not contain any formal reserved areas. Only 7% approximately of Western Australia's terrestrial area is currently reserved in the formal conservation estate.