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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/11/labor-proposal-to-fix-australias-broken-environmental-protection-system-could-revolutionise-sector>
"It doesn’t get the attention other issues do, but fixing Australia’s broken
environment protection system deserves a place high on a list of the biggest
challenges facing the Albanese government.
Last week we got the first substantial look at where the government may be
headed. Perhaps not surprisingly, it raised more questions than it answered.
Some of what is proposed – particularly the creation of a federal Environment
Protection Agency to decide whether developments can go ahead and uphold a new
set of national environmental standards – could revolutionise conservation
management across the country. But there are also elements of what the
government is proposing that could exacerbate existing problems if not well
implemented. Most of the big design decisions are still to come as legislation
is drafted in 2023.
A quick reminder of just how bad the problem is: a five-yearly report on the
state of the environment found that nature in Australia is in a poor and
deteriorating state due to a long list of pressures, including the climate
crisis, habitat destruction, the spread of invasive species, pollution and
mining. The country is a global leader in extinction, having lost more mammal
species than any other continent. Nearly 20 ecosystems are showing signs of
collapse or near collapse.
By any measure, the country’s main environment laws, under the Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999, are failing. The
environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, correctly described the report as a
“shocking document” and promised that “under Labor the environment is back on
the priority list”. She later announced targets including a goal of “zero
extinctions” and protecting 30% of Australian land by 2030.
The state of the environment report tells us just how bold the zero extinction
target is. Between 2011 and 2021, 377 animal and plant species were newly
listed as threatened matters of national environmental significance. Put
bluntly, they are on a path towards extinction. Hardly any have conservation
plans or the funding needed to arrest their plight. Many more are likely to be
added to the list in the years ahead as the catastrophic toll of the black
summer bushfires three years ago becomes clearer."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
