For decades international scientists have been warning Australia that this island continent would feel the worst environmental impacts of global warming first.
And for just as many decades (with the exception of the years between 2007 and 2013), as both governments and the governed, this country has been ignoring these warnings.
The end result is that Australia now lists 83 species of higher plants, 23 mammal species, 22 species of birds and at least 4 frogs species as having been driven into extinction since 1788.
There are many hundreds more threatened species and ecological communities. See: C'wealth EPBC Act List of Threatened Fauna.
While we as a nation and people have not yet achieved 100 per cent extinction in certain flora and fauna groups, climate change has arrived to assist in turning this unique landmass and its coastal waters into a barren wasteland.
This year alone has seen 93 per cent of The Great Barrier Reef experience coral bleaching and 700 kilometres of the Gulf of Carpentaria suffer widespread mangrove dieback with saltmash loss, while the Great Southern Reef lost 100 kms of its giant kelp forests in 2011 leading to the functional extinction of 370sq km of rocky cool-climate reefs, extending down the coast from Kalbarri, about 570km north of Perth, Western Australia.
Now reputable institutions and senior scientists are giving us another urgent warning about extinctions to come if Australia doesn't stop acting as if the natural environment hasn't changed for the worse in the last 200 years.
Australia’s land clearing rate is once
again among the highest in the world.
Remaining forests and woodlands are
critical for much of our wildlife, for the health and productivity of our lands
and waters, and for the character of our nation. Beginning in the 1990s,
governments gradually increased protection of these remaining forests and
woodlands.
However, those laws are now being
wound back.
The State of Queensland has suffered
the greatest loss of forests and woodlands. But while stronger laws by the
mid-2000s achieved dramatic reductions of forest and woodland loss, recent
weakening of laws reversed the trend. Loss of rtinture forest has more than
trebled since 2009. In Victoria, home to four of Australia’s five most heavily
cleared bioregions, land clearing controls were weakened in 2013, and in New
South Wales, proposed biodiversity laws provide increased opportunities for
habitat destruction.
Of the eleven world regions
highlighted as global deforestation fronts, eastern Australia is the only one
in a developed country. This problem threatens much of Australia’s
extraordinary biodiversity and, if not redressed, will blight the environmental
legacy we leave future generations.
Australia’s wildlife at
risk
Already, Australia’s environment has
suffered substantial damage from clearing of forests, woodlands and grasslands,
including serious declines in woodland birds and reptiles. Vast numbers
of animals are killed by forest and woodland destruction. For example, between
1998 and 2005 an estimated 100 million native birds, reptiles and mammals were
killed because of destruction of their habitat in NSW; in Queensland, the
estimate was 100 million native animals dying each year between 1997
and 1999. As land clearing once again escalates, so too will these losses of
wildlife.
The loss of habitat is among the
greatest of threats to Australia’s unique threatened species, imperiling 60%
of Australia’s more than 1,700 threatened species. Habitat protection is
essential for preventing more species from becoming threatened in the future,
adding to our burgeoning threatened species lists. Habitat removal eliminates
the plants and animals that lived in it; increases risks to wildlife from
introduced predators; impacts surface and groundwater-dependent ecosystems, and
fragments habitat so that individuals are unable to move through the landscape.
It also reduces the ability of species to move in response to climate change.
The societal costs of
forest and woodland destruction
Forest and woodland destruction also
causes long-term costs to farmers, governments and society. Removal of native
vegetation:
·
Hastens erosion and reduces fertility
of Australia’s ancient and fragile soils
·
Increases the risk of soils becoming
saline
·
Exacerbates drought
·
Reduces numbers of native pollinators
and many wildlife species (such as woodland birds and insectivorous bats) that
control agricultural pests
·
Reduces shade for livestock from heat
and wind.
Continued and increasing removal of
forests, woodlands and grasslands increases the cost of restoring landscapes
and reduces the chance of success. For example, the Australian Government has
committed to plant 20 million trees by 2020. Yet many more than 20 million
trees are cleared every year in Queensland alone.
Forest and woodland destruction
increases the threat to some of Australia’s most iconic environmental assets.
Coral health on The Great Barrier Reef has declined precipitously from the
effects of high temperatures associated with climate change, poor water
quality, and the flow-on impacts it triggers (such as crown-of-thorns
outbreaks). Native vegetation removal from catchments that flow into the Great
Barrier Reef liberates topsoil and contaminants, reducing water quality and
threatening the health and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef. Governments
have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this problem, with
estimates of the full cost of restoring water quality as high as AUD$10 billion.
Native vegetation is a major carbon
sink. Forest and woodland destruction is the fastest-growing contributor to
Australia’s carbon emissions, as it transfers the carbon that was stored in the
vegetation to the atmosphere. Hence, Australia’s increasing forest and woodland
destruction threatens its ability to meet its commitments under four major
international treaties: the Convention on Biological Diversity, the World
Heritage Convention, the Convention to Combat Desertification, and the
Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Urgently-needed
solutions
·
Develop and implement a
strategy to end net loss of native vegetation, and restore over-cleared
landscapes
·
Recognise all biodiversity, not just
threatened species, in policy and legislation for the management of native
vegetation
·
Establish clear, transparent and
repeatable national reporting of clearing of native vegetation
·
Use rigorous biodiversity assessment
methods for assessing clearing requests, accounting for all potential impacts,
including cumulative and indirect impacts
·
Identify habitats that are of high
conservation value for complete protection
·
For unavoidable losses of native
vegetation, require robust and transparent offsets that meet the highest
standards and improve biodiversity outcomes
Thirteen years ago, scientists from
across the world expressed their grave concern about ongoing high rates of land
forest and woodland destruction in the Australian State of Queensland. For a
while, the warning was heeded, and the Queensland state government acted to
bring land clearing to historically low levels.
The
progress made then is now being undone. Forest and
woodland destruction has resumed at increasingly high rates. This return of
large-scale deforestation to Australia risks further irreversible environmental
consequences of international significance.
Today,
scientists from across the world (including those listed), in conjunction with
scientific societies and the delegates of the Society for Conservation Biology
(Oceania) Conference, call upon Australian governments and parliaments,
especially those of Queensland and New South Wales, to take action. We call for
the prevention of a return to the damaging past of high rates of woodland and
forest destruction, in order to protect the unique biodiversity and marine
environments of which Australia is sole custodian.
Signatories
Scientific Societies
And 200
senior scientists from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands,
Fiji, Malaysia, Sweden, Denmark, United Kingdom, and United States of America
whose names can be found here.
8 July 2016
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