Danielle Ryan, Conservation Campaigner and Gary Dunnett, CEO
Back in March 2023 a new NSW Government came into office carrying a lot of expectations from the conservation movement. Labor’s election platform contained clear Protected Area commitments, notably the creation of koala-focused national parks on the mid north coast and in southwest Sydney, along with a long overdue revamp of the National Parks Establishment Plan. At a national level the Commonwealth had just signed onto the Global Biodiversity Framework including the elevated aspirations for Protected Areas under 30by30. More generally, the hope was that we would start to see serious progress on those most intractable of NSW environmental issues, the future of public native forests, bringing the disastrous rates of native vegetation clearance under control and a whole range of policies to address climate change and biodiversity loss.
Bold commitments and big expectations. Nine months later, how are they doing?
In short, the answer is frustratingly slow. Yes, there has been some progress towards the establishment of the Great Koala National Park and the Upper Georges River Koala National Park, and initial stakeholder discussions are underway about the scope of a new National Parks Establishment Plan. Progress, but with nothing like the sense of urgency that long years of environmental inaction and the escalating climate and biodiversity crises demand.
This article argues that we need to see a profound change in determination and urgency from leaders in government and across the machinery of government. This requires a values-led approach to stewardship over the large swathes of territory owned by the NSW Government, public assets that require exceptional nurture and care if we are going to halt the current wave of extinctions and compromised ecosystems.
Slow progress on koala parks
The public was repeatedly assured that the creation of the Great Koala National Park was the new government’s highest environmental priority. However, progress on establishing the park has been painfully slow. Painful and damaging, because, contrary to past practice and common sense, the announcement saw no halt to public forestry operations across the proposed park. Forestry Corporation has been allowed to run rampant, undermining the ecological integrity in a flurry of intensive logging, rather than offering a safe space to allow the planning phase to be completed.
The current situation is that the Minister for Environment has just announced the creation of three advisory panels (industry, community and Indigenous Australian groups), including NPA on the community panel. A temporary suspension is in place for selected koala habitats within the proposed park, those previously identified as hubs of essential koala populations and habitats (3 November 2023). These koala hubs cover only 5% of the park, far short of the breathing space the forests need while the boundaries are finalised.
Further south, the Minister released the proposed boundaries of the Upper Georges River Koala National Park. It is another long-standing NPA proposal which aims to protect koala habitats – this time using public lands purchased over several decades for community and conservation. To our disappointment, the published map only amounted to 1,800 ha, more than a thousand hectares less that NPA’s calculations for the proposed park. We are in discussions with the Minister’s office and signs are good that the final version will move much closer to our aspirations.
See James Sherwood’s article, in this edition, for more on the Great Koala National Park.
A new National Parks Establishment Plan
The last National Parks Establishment Plan was published in 2008, long before the higher reservation targets of 30by30. Perhaps even more importantly, the 2008 plan was very much a reflection of the measured, unhurried approach to reserve establishment. Both political and environmental conditions have changed, with the 2030 target deadline for protecting the land and sea giving clear indication of the urgenct need to ramp up the rate of Protected Area establishment across the nation.
In other words, we don’t just need a new establishment plan, we need a completely new type of establishment plan, one that addresses the much higher reservation targets and challenging timeframes.
NPA has also been liaising with Trish Doyle MP, Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment and the person charged with leading the development of the new establishment plan. NPA has argued the case that the ‘business as usual’ approach won’t get the job done. We’re further arguing for an expanded scope of vision, one that encompasses all Protected Areas, including Marine Parks and Aquatic Reserves. It is time to start treating marine conservation seriously in NSW – setting reservation targets and priorities in a holistic Protected Area Establishment Plan would be a great start.
The good news is, during the annual Marine Parks Forum in November 2023 Parliamentary Secretary Doyle confirmed there is an opportunity to consider including Marine Protected Areas. This would be a welcome result indeed.
There is no doubt that it will be a massive challenge to identify the next generation of Protected Areas in the quantities and timeframes required. The inclusion of public native forests currently classified as State Forests would be a significant step towards NSW’s contribution towards global and national goals to preserve a third of global habitats.
A recent direction for documents (known as a Section 52 demand) by the Legislative Council uncovered evidence that the previous government had identified 401,621 hectares of State Forest lands that were already excluded from logging and had proposed transferring 312,626 hectares into national park. This is now a footnote in history, but an indication that even the now Opposition was seriously considering major changes for our public native forests.
There is no doubt that forestry advocates within the NSW Government will continue to actively oppose any attempts to shift the industry to a purely plantation-based model. An example of such resistance is provided in those Section 52 papers. This one involved the EPA CEO writing to Forestry Corporation (FC) (4 August 2023) asking for FC to start sharing their operational plan for a forestry operation at least three weeks prior to the commencement of the forestry operation (instead of the current required two business days). The intent was to ensure that potential impacts of koalas and other threatened species were properly evaluated.
FC ignored the request, stating to the EPA (11 August) that it would continue publishing approved harvest plans two days prior to the operations commencing and would only ‘endeavour’ to do so at an earlier date where it felt it could do so.
Two days is not enough time for concerned community representations or EPA officials to determine whether a harvesting plan follows the rule of law. FC has far from demonstrated its moral or good administration potential, considering the mountain of breaches and penalties it has faced.
The critical issue is whether the new NSW Government is prepared to follow the lead of their equivalents in Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland, and commit to permanently phasing out logging in all public native forests. Given the slow progress on just one part of the forest estate, the Great Koala National Park, they are going to need a major push.
Fortunately, NPA and our colleagues across the conservation movement are determined to generate the case for change. We’re focusing on our strength, preparing detailed, well-argued new park proposals that involve the transfer of State Forest to Protected Area. NPA is actively working on such plans for the Pilliga, Jervis Bay and southern forests. The government’s ambitions for this term of office may only stretch to the Great Koala National Park – ours must go much further!
The political inertia inhibiting the transfer of forests to a conservation paradigm is immense, yet so is the international momentum towards safeguarding a much higher proportion of our land and seas in as natural a condition as possible. Nothing else will stop the collapse of species and ecosystems, nor does any other action offer the same capacity to sequester and store the carbon emissions that drive disastrous climate change.
Biodiversity conservation
The Henry Review of the Biodiversity Conservation Act, released in August 2023, offers a pathway to un-do the myriad of legislative and administrative roadblocks to effective conservation.
The report supports tying NSW nature laws to 30by30, arguing ‘the case for giving primacy to environmental repair is inescapable. Our future depends on it’. It even questions the principles of sustainable development that are included in multiple NSW Acts, saying they are ‘no longer fit for purpose.’ The report strongly endorses the adoption of a ‘Nature Positive’ approach to legislation, policy and administration.
The NSW Minister for Environment has further stated, in response to the findings, “Ken Henry and the team who did that review have really rung the alarm bell on the current laws not working, and we can’t stand here and just pretend that they are.”
However, it is one thing to acknowledge that there is a problem, but acting on even the most carefully crafted recommendations requires phenomenal leadership that drives a fundamental shift of belief systems within government operations. New beliefs and values must be reflected in the structure of the machinery of government.
A sense of purpose in judging ethical behaviour is required. Ministerial leadership must not simply spin the words of the Henry Review to allow the cultural inertia and poor performance of departments and politics to continue.
Do shared ministerial accountabilities work?
Responsibility for our forests, native vegetation and marine estate is currently shared between the Minister for Environment and the Minister for Primary Industries. The idea is that this arrangement balances the needs of both conservation and resource extraction. The reality is that under the previous NSW Government the interests of fishers, agricultural producers and forestry interests dominated any consideration of biodiversity impact. The issue is whether this dynamic can change without major alterations to the sharing arrangements.
Responding to a question about the previous government’s opening of marine sanctuaries to fishing, Environment Minister Sharpe stated (2 November 23):
“It [change] is slower than I would like, … if I could wave a magic wand and fix all of the environmental and energy and climate change and heritage challenges that exist and that have been a long time in the making, over a series of different governments—it doesn’t matter what stripe—then I would.”
Primary Industry Minister, Tara Moriarty, also stated that she was working on the same issue in a ‘careful, considered way’. So, what is the hold up? This is a situation where there truly is an administrative magic wand, all that is necessary is for the Ministers to agree to restore the legal protection for these sanctuaries.
The marine sanctuary fiasco gives a solid message that the endless compromises embedded in the shared responsibility model have to end.
What is at stake is the survival of a species – it is a biodiversity issue pure and simple.
Marine conservation
All the aspiration in the world will not save our state’s unique habitats and wildlife on the land and in the sea unless the government arrangements are in place with exceptional skill sets and the right values-led objectives to be able to advise ministers and to deliver on conservation values-led political aspirations.
Marine Protected Area (MPA) planning should be delivered by the Department of Environment, yet at present it is led by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI). The NSW Government‘s upcoming response to the Henry Review offers an opportunity to address administrative structure shortfalls that were established under the 2014 Marine Estate Management Act, vesting control over MPAs with DPI, whose objectives are about sustaining the current population of fish stocks, rather than trying to maintain the biodiversity of our seas (Booth, 2023).
Conclusion
So, where are the solutions? The Henry Review offers us all a lesson into why the current arrangements simply won’t work. Henry calls for a shift to ‘environmental primacy’ over ‘resource extraction’ values. In practical terms this means giving biodiversity legislation primacy over other legislation to ensure the ‘primacy to environmental considerations’ to achieve nature positive outcomes.
Let’s remember the whole concept of national parks and reserves may not have been what it is today if America’s Theodore Roosevelt, known as the ‘Conservation President’, hadn’t seized the opportunity to use his executive authority to create Protected Areas. He himself took an avid interest in philosophy. Perhaps it is time to dust off the old articles and books and look to the great thinkers on the establishment of National Parks. The NSW Government would do well to take the lead of the US National Parks Service and publicly express the values and origins of good protected areas administrative service.
References
Booth, D. 2023. Report: Creating a world class marine protected area system: Getting New South Wales back on track. . Accessed 9 November 2023.
Portfolio Committee No.7 Planning & Environment Thursday 2 November 2023. Unedited Transcript. Accessed 9 November 2023.