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Strategy reviewed at conference

The draft National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity was released for public comment on 7 March 1992. Comments are due by 1 May 1992.

As part of the process of public consultation, the 1992 Fenner Environment Conference was held at the Australian Academy of Science on 11-13 March.

The conference provided a forum to encourage constructive review of the draft National Strategy. The 230 invited delegates included representatives of the scientific community, all levels of Government, business and industry, and the conservation movement.

In her address, Mrs Kelly pointed out that "Australia does need a comprehensive approach to bridge the gap between current efforts and effective identification, conservation and management of Australia's biological diversity. The draft National Strategy ... aims to bridge this gap by taking a holistic view of the problems and proposing a range of actions to ensure that Australia's biological diversity is conserved. It recognises that many existing programs and efforts warrant increased application, resources and community involvement. But they by themselves are only part of the solution to conserving biodiversity".

The National Strategy: target areas for action

Taken from the Executive Summary of the draft National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity

Six target areas for action have been identified as follows:

1. Improving our knowledge. An adequate understanding of biological diversity is essential for its effective conservation and management. Important actions include:

• identifying gaps in knowledge, and rapidly assessing those elements which are poorly known;
• increased training and monitoring; and
• quick information dissemination

2. Strengthening conservation activities. Current policies and programs for conserving biological diversity are not sufficient by themselves. Important actions to improve these include:

• managing biological diversity on a regional basis;
• improving the standard of management both inside and outside reserves;
• strengthening the protection of wildlife;
• increasing incentives for conservation on private lands;
• filling in gaps in our protected area system; and
• developing recovery plans for our threatened species.

3. Achieving sustainable use. The long-term viability of many of Australia's primary industries is dependent on the maintenance of biological diversity. Important actions to achieve the sustainable use of biological resources include:

• the development and adoption of national integrated policies for biological resource use industries (especially forestry, fisheries, pastoralism and agriculture);
• ensuring that the knowledge base is adequate for decision-making; and
• improved management techniques.

4. Minimising impacts. For biological diversity to be conserved, the major threats to it need to be controlled and their impacts minimised. Important actions include:

• improved and co-ordinated management of weeds and pests;
• increased understanding of the impacts of pollutants and strengthened pollution control measures;
• planning for the consequences of climate change;
• effective rehabilitation; and
• better procedures for impact assessment.

5. Increasing public awareness. Individuals and groups in the community have an important role to play in the conservation of biological diversity. Important actions include:

• increasing the availability of information on biological diversity;
• developing educational programs that deal with biological diversity;
• facilitating greater public involvement in planning processes, environmental impact assessments and biological diversity programs.

6. Promoting international action. Australia needs to conserve its biological diversity as part of a global conservation effort, and Australians should act so as to not threaten the biological diversity of other countries or areas. Important actions to encourage this include:

• ensuring that existing relevant bilateral and international agreements are implemented;
• promoting the development of relevant new agreements; and
• ensuring that biological diversity conservation is considered in trading agreements and our aid program.

International developments in the conservation of biological diversity

Dr Kenton Miller is Director of the World Resources Institute Program in Forests and Biodiversity and is responsible for development of the Global Biodiversity Strategy. Dr Miller gave the keynote address at the Fenner Environment Conference

Introduction

Human numbers and impact have grown so large they are eroding on a global scale the natural systems that support life. How can we establish the economic wealth needed to generate equitable livelihoods for all people without destroying the natural and cultural wealth upon which the formation and regeneration of this wealth depends? Citizens, community groups, governments and international organisations have taken important steps over the past several years to address this challenge. Among the milestones we would cite the World Conservation Strategy of IUCN, WWF and UNEP in 1980; the Man and Biosphere Program sponsored by UNESCO; and the publication of Our Common Future by the Bruntland Commission. These set the stage for innovative thinking, the concepts of sustainability and new initiatives regarding the management of land and water

Six biodiversity initiatives

Today, six initiatives are being developed and implemented:

• Caring for the Earth. Following on the heels of the World Conservation Strategy, it looks directly, broadly, forcefully, at the question of how to achieve a sustainable future for the citizen, for the state and for the globe. I urge you all to read it. It provides a broad treatment of the entire human agenda, within which biodiversity stands out as a particular concern.
• The Global Biodiversity Strategy was released in Caracas, Venezuela in February. I will come back to that and dwell on it for the major part of this presentation.
• International Convention. At the same time, the countries are developing the Convention for the Conservation of Biological Diversity, in which the Government and NGOs of Australia are playing a key role. This proposes to put in place hard international law on the subject of biodiversity.
• Fourth is Agenda 21, the action plan to come from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development next June in Rio de Janeiro, where we will hope that all of our prime ministers and presidents will assemble and commit themselves, their governments and peoples to take some serious action on the agenda of humanity for the dawn of the next century. Within the elements of that agenda biodiversity occupies a prominent section. It is expected that with the endorsement of Agenda 21 and signing the Biodiversity Convention at Rio de Janeiro, efforts to conserve our biotic wealth will expand considerably.
• Fifth is the development of Biodiversity '92 by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre at Cambridge in the United Kingdom. This will be a document filled with data and information about biodiversity around the world and will serve as the main data source at the global level for future tracking and monitoring of how well we are doing.
• Finally, the Global Environment Facility is being developed by the World Bank, UNDP and UNEP to provide massive funding for subjects that include biodiversity.

Global Biodiversity Strategy

Preliminary guidelines

Following our initial consultations around the world, several preliminary guidelines were drawn up that oriented our work throughout the project: First there was need of a shared vision. Second, no single group, no single institution, can pretend to embrace biodiversity and what has to be done about it. Therefore, we need a common effort. The third discovery was that no single answer exists, or as they say in my town, 'There is no silver bullet solution'. We need many solutions. Everywhere we went there were biotas in trouble. People everywhere faced problems in conserving their biotic wealth and people everywhere required the co-operation and support of local, national and international groups.

The result of that discussion simply reads: 'Everyone's backyard counts. It is not just the tropical forest. It is not just the tropical seas. It is the dry forest, it's the Arctic, the Antarctic – every place is in trouble and needs action'.

Fourth, we cannot allow biodiversity to be a flash in the pan, one-off issue like we usually do in conservation, like we usually see in fundraising and like governments are prone to do. This is too vital to be allowed to be given a quick job; this needs a long-term, sustained effort. Hence, we talk about a decade of focused action and investment.

And fifth, we have failed to address the root causes. It is time we had the courage to move upstream and look at the causes of alteration, of destruction, of waste. Only through that mechanism can we expect to achieve the maintenance of biodiversity and enjoyment of its wealth.

Goals of biodiversity conservation

The goals of biological diversity conservation come down to three simple words: save, study and use.

Our problem was not simply one of preserving more wild nature; that policy in isolation forces us to face such questions as: how do you pay for that land?; how do you deal with the people who will have to move or lose or pay inordinate costs? Second, we need more research, we need inventories and databases. How does that get paid for? And third, most biodiversity is in one way or another already under some system of management – through forestry, agriculture, and fisheries. Until those user groups begin to work with diversity we cannot expect to move forward. So the three have to come together: save, study and use.

Scope of biodiversity conservation

Then, the scope of work for biodiversity management can be defined with help from ecology. First, biodiversity covers not only species, but also genetic variation, habitats and ecosystems. Second, in addition to the attributes of species and their genetic variation, biodiversity management must consider the structures that we define as forest habitat, savanna habitat, and reef, and the functions of ecosystems - the nutrient and waste cycles, hydrology, pollination, and migration among many others.

The scope can also be defined by hierarchical levels of work – global issues, national policies,and local community action. Obviously, it is at the local level where people live, where people work, where industry is sited and where resources are used. Each layer has to be managed to achieve an integrated whole.

Findings of Global Biodiversity Strategy

The findings of the Global Biodiversity Strategy can be summarised as follows. There are five catalytic actions. Without these five actions, no matter what the subsequent actions are, the latter will simply not take place or not take place in time or at a sufficient scale of response.

 

• Biodiversity Convention. Until we have a law in place that nations sign, that governs the management of biodiversity by states and the relationships among states regarding diversity, we cannot anticipate systematic treatment of our biotic wealth and a commitment to conserve biodiversity in the long run. We see the Convention as having to include, for example, a commitment by each signature nation to a national biological diversity plan for its own backyard: what we need to do at home to save, to study, to use wisely. There should be lists of key sites to make quite clear what we are committing. These commitments should be monitored locally as well as internationally. We are not simply discussing options that can be accepted or rejected; we are talking about the fundamental base upon which we hope to build a sustainable society.
• International Biodiversity Decade. The Strategy proposes that the United Nations establish an international decade on biological diversity. The advantage this could have if enough states got behind it and enough NGOs got behind it is that we could keep this subject on the front burner long enough to do some good.
• International Biodiversity Panel. An open forum for continuing exploration and dialogue on biodiversity – how to save it, understand it and appreciate it, and how to use it wisely – is needed to enable citizens, governments, industry, NGOs, and indigenous communities to ensure that their biotic wealth is properly managed.
• Early warning system. An amnesty-type capability is needed so that people can get information quickly about what is happening to our key genetic material, our species and our ecosystems.
• National biodiversity plans. Finally, each nation needs a national plan of action.

Major proposals and initiatives

The Strategy then presents 80 specific proposals and initiatives. In brief, these include:

• Policy reform. Biodiversity doesn't necessarily cost money – if we had the courage to go back and reform those things which are detracting now from progress in many sectors. Following a reform process new policies are needed. One of the new policies is our accounting system. For example our GNP indicator does not include the decapitalisation of our natural resources, or the amortisation of our natural resources. Thus these figures are giving us quite false impressions.
  
  Were we to have good accounting systems – there is no mystery about how to do that – and were we to strive to get the prices right for our commodities – particularly those like forestry, minerals, and fisheries – so that they carry a true cost to environmental factors, particularly ecosystems, then we might start to see some changes in behaviour.
• Reduce demand and consumption. We need to reduce the demand for biological resources. This, of course, relates to population, to recycling, to consumption. We need to evolve tools for consumption audits to track our consumption of energy and of basic materials and to make people aware of how much less we need use. In my own country we could reduce timber harvesting dramatically by some straightforward changes in the application of technology in the forest and in manufacturing.
• Tenure, access and ownership. One issue that came forward in all our regional consultations was land tenure. One of the most fundamental driving forces of destruction is a lack of access or lack of equitable distribution of land resources to people who most need them or to people who know how to use them.
• Sustainable use of wild products. We need to expand and encourage the sustainable use of products and services from the wild. But we must, first, give value to wild commodities and, second, distribute those costs and benefits in equitable ways.
• Manage at a regional scale. We have been managing conservation at a scale that is too small. We need to move up to the regional scale – the bioregion. There are examples here in Australia: the Great Barrier Reef, the Murray-Darling, and others. There need to be mechanisms for dialogue within regions that are culturally, ecologically and economically identifiable – the places where people are ready to talk about stewardship because they live there.
• Conflict resolution. There need to be mechanisms for conflict resolution. There need to be mechanisms to help the weaker participate. In the centre of each of those regions there has to be an information centre, not only advanced Geographic Information Systems but the kind of thing the citizen can look at to begin to understand his/her own homeland. There need to be support[s] for biodiversity conservation initiatives in the private sector. Tax incentives, biodiversity trusts and other mechanisms are fundamental in many countries.
• Incorporate biodiversity considerations into resource management. We need to manage forests, coasts, wetlands, and other habitats to ensure a wide variety of seral stages on both public and private lands. The ideal is to achieve a mosaic of land uses and seral stages across the wider landscape. All of these distinct but ecologically linked units must be considered as parts of the overall biodiversity conservation program.
• Protected areas. Parks and reserves are the backbone of any system to maintain diversity. They are absolutely vital. If anything, they need to be larger and they certainly need to be stronger. In most places in the world we need more of them.
• Species, population, and genetic diversity. The best science and technology needs to be applied to address specific goals in particular places. Over-generalisation about so-called nature conservation does not provide the focus needed to manage biodiversity. What are we trying to retain? At what population size? What structures are needed? What functions carefully safeguarded? How can these components be packaged into a management plan?
• Ex-situ facilities. We also need to relate parks and reserves to zoos, botanic gardens, universities, research stations and aquaria – one single network of facilities that share a common strategy; to what do we need to give special attention to in order to ensure its maintenance into the long-term future?
• Education and training. Biodiversity conservation calls for more intensive management. This implies training of management personnel to apply appropriate science and technology, including such practices as captive breeding, re-introductions, and habitat restoration. Information about the opportunities and benefits associated with biodiversity management needs to be more widely disseminated.

Not business-as-usual conservation

Isn't this just business as usual conservation? Several compelling reasons can be given for why this is indeed not the case: first, with this approach the social, policy and institutional root causes of biodiversity impoverishment are being addressed frontally. Second, the approach is broad and comprehensive in line with the very nature of biodiversity, including mechanisms to maintain, to learn and become aware, and to improve our ways of using biological resources. Third, biodiversity is linked to achieving sustainable societies. And fourth, through management at regional landscape scales, biodiversity conservation can be a force for social, economic and cultural integration, bringing together traditionally antagonistic communities into common cause.

Biodiversity and Australia

Finally, what has all this got to do with Australia? First of all, I hope you use the Strategy for what it is worth to help and guide your own discussions. It may raise some questions that have not been contemplated. I do think that it provides a solid conceptual framework.

I hope that you will continue and strengthen the leadership of Australia in deliberations negotiating the Convention and Agenda 21. Join the call for the establishment of an international panel. Assist in the establishment of an early warning system. Help us in calling on the Secretary-General of the United Nations to establish an international decade.

Strengthen the participation of the Australian Government, its agencies and NGOs, especially regarding the international funding mechanisms. This is another major area of debate. One cannot remain silent on this discussion. They are developing funds that will have perhaps billions of dollars. How will those be designed and administered? Australia has a particular stake in how that is done.

Share the experience of Australia in various ways on biodiversity conservation with your neighbours in this region of the world. I can't stress how important it is to offer workshops, training sessions, scholarships and missions from your own groups to the other countries.

Finally take assurance that you are part of the global community effort. In fact, you are well ahead in many aspects. The world can well do with leadership from countries that first take steps to get their own backyard in order. Congratulations to you all.

A multiplicity of insects: biodiversity studies in Australia's rainforest canopies

R.L. Kitching, Department of Ecosystem Management, University of New England

Our everyday existence suggest that we share our planet with a great many insects – the armyworms that eat our crops, the mosquitoes that transmit diseases, the blowflies that infest our sheep, the cockroaches in our kitchens and even the bush flies which turn our picnics into furtive, hurried affairs. And yet, even if we could bring to mind all the species which impinge directly on human affairs, we would have just a few thousand species. There are over a million named species of insects and few entomologists will dispute that the known and named are exceeded by the unnamed (and largely unknown) by at least as many again.

Since the early eighties insect ecologists studying the canopies of tropical rainforests have discovered that earlier estimates of the total number of species of insect on Earth may be hopelessly low. Instead of the two to three million that we anticipated previously numbers as much as ten, thirty or eighty million have now been advanced. Of course it is quite impossible to arrive at such a figure with any real accuracy although heated debate has been generated – but even more conservative entomologists are now talking of between five and ten million!

This great jump in the size of our estimates was a result of the development of techniques that knock down a large proportion of the insect inhabitants of patches of rainforest using organic pesticides dispensed from machines that are hauled or carried into the high canopy.

In Australia Professor Roger Kitching and his co-workers have been applying these approaches to the canopies of cool temperate, subtropical and lowland tropical forests over the last few years. Tens of thousands of insect specimens have been generated and the follow-up work generated will continue for many more years. The work has been funded by the Australian Research Council, Earthwatch (Australia), the lan Potter Foundation and the Australian Geographical Society.

Many of the major activities have involved the use of Earthwatch volunteers, more than seventy of whom have participated in the project over the last four years. These 'volunteers' spend from ten days to two weeks in the forest, either in south-east Queensland or in the far north at Cape Tribulation, assisting with the field sampling, and sorting the insects so generated into their respective groups.

Collaborating specialists from all over the world then take up the task of further sorting the material to the level of the species. The volunteers themselves support the research financially through the Earthwatch organisation and are a vital part of the whole operation.

The rainforest canopy studies have involved about ten separate field expeditions and over 80 volunteers from Australia, New Zealand, the USA and the UK. All have learned to identify arthropods to Order level, to record data, set-up field sites and carry out botanical surveys. Future expeditions to the rainforests of south-east and far northern Queensland are approved and will occur in late 1992 and mid-1993.

Results

Early results of the canopy studies in Australia include:

• an estimate of 4.6 million insects (and related animals) from a single hectare of subtropical rainforest canopy;
• an estimate of about 50 species of barklice, 30 species plus of springtails, and 430 species plus of beetles from but 900 square metres of subtropical canopy;
• at least one, probably two, new families of flies from the samples;
• estimates of between 50 and 90% unnamed species within particular groups (8 of 10 crane flies from the tropical forest canopy, for instance, are new to science);
• specialist canopy springtails & nd a group generally associated with the leaf litter on the forest floor – have been discovered in large numbers in the subtropical canopies;
• distinctive 'profiles' of each forest type in terms of the proportions of different groups of insects that live in them; and distinct differences between the upper and lower canopy both in terms of numbers of individuals, their distribution across groups, and their response to drought conditions.

From these results and many others like them we conclude that there is a species richness in our rainforest canopies to match that seen elsewhere in the world in rainforests. As for other rainforests, it remains quite impossible to say how many species of arthropods are involved in these canopies. We do know from limited results to date that taxonomically they are substantially unknown and represent a rich resource for future researchers. The existence of whole new families is just one indicator of this richness and the unknown and unworked nature of the fauna. The other special significance of the work is that the techniques for sampling and sorting of canopy arthropods – from rainforest or any other woody vegetation – that have been developed will eventually allow a rapid assessment of arthropod species richness to be made for selected groups of species. The results of such assessments, properly applied, will introduce a new and important dimension into the impact assessment process and will allow for a long overdue increase in the efficiency of environmental decision making in due course.

Other groups of insects remain to be worked up. The overall impression, as elsewhere in rainforests, is of a highly diverse, largely unknown biological world that we are only just beginning to understand but which we neglect at our peril if we have genuine concerns for biodiversity. In fact, in terms of total biological species numbers, biodiversity at the moment is insect diversity and if we wish to understand and manage the biodiversity of Australian ecosystems, rainforest or otherwise, then we must pay attention to the canopy invertebrates, most of which are insects.

The key to identification

Liz Tynan, CSIRO Division of Entomology, Canberra

Knowledge acquired from decades of painstaking research into beetle larvae will be available easily and instantly with the advent of a new expert system being developed in Australia for worldwide release.

The new identification system will support systematic studies in biology. It also has a range of other functions, such as in assisting quarantine officials to identify specimens or as an educational tool.

Dr John Lawrence of the CSIRO Division of Entomology is an expert on Coleoptera, and has been involved in the development of keys for larval identification since about 1970.

A book released in 1991, Immature Insects, contains the results of 20 years of work. Dr Lawrence was the co-ordinator for the Coleoptera section of the book. It was out of this work, and with the development of sophisticated computer systems, that Dr Lawrence realised the potential for developing software that could be made available to a range of people with an interest in identification of beetle larvae.

He used the DELTA (DEscriptive Language for TAxonomy) coding system developed by Entomology's Dr Michael Dallwitz and Ms Toni Paine for his input to Immature Insects. DELTA produces a linear key – one in which the interrogation involves a prescribed sequence of choices. The new system which has evolved out of DELTA, and the one Dr Lawrence is using for the identification system, is a more flexible and complex one which has been named INTKEY (INTeractive KEY).

This system does not conform to a fixed sequence of actions, but instead enables the user to follow quite complex pathways through the data, even if only patchy information about the specimen in question is available.

Specimens may be identified to family or, in some cases, sub-family level, and at this stage about 350 different taxa are represented on the system. This number will be increased as more data come in.

One of the strengths of INTKEY is that it allows a variety of approaches to identification, and this is especially important for users who are not experts in the field.

Among these tools are graphics, comprising a number of scanning electron microscope images as well as line drawings. Division of Entomology artist Anne Hastings has been responsible for inputting the drawings for the beetle data base and will continue to work on the project for another year.

Both the DELTA and INTKEY systems have a number of other possible applications in science. For instance, a researcher at the Australian National University is using DELTA to produce an identification system on world grass genera.

The National Science and Technology Centre in Canberra will soon have a hands-on exhibit of INTKEY, which already has proved a big hit at the CSIRO Black Mountain Open Days.

Conservation of biological diversity in South Australia

Geoffrey Bishop, Native Vegetation Management Branch, Department of Environment and Planning

The conservation of biological diversity has been one of the principal aims of the native vegetation management program in South Australia since its introduction in 1981. In that year the Heritage Agreement scheme was initiated to encourage landowners to protect remnant areas of bushland on their properties. This program was followed two years later by legislative controls on the clearance of native vegetation.

The initial controls which were under the Planning Act, were replaced in 1981 by the Native Vegetation Management Act. The new legislation continued the earlier clearance controls but also enabled landowners who were refused consent to clear land to claim financial assistance provided the area was registered under a Heritage Agreement. Between 1985 and 1991, a total of $36 million was spent by the Government on financial assistance payments.

At present there are 650 Heritage Agreements registered on property titles encompassing over 420,000 ha. This is a significant area and is an important adjunct to the reserves under the National Parks and Wildlife Act.

There are presently over 16 million ha reserved throughout the State under the National Parks scheme. In the agricultural area National Parks and Reserves occupy 918,870 ha or 5.9% of the total area. As the better soil types throughout the State have been selectively cleared for agricultural purposes, the parks system does not adequately conserve examples of all of the 165 plant associations recorded from South Australia. The Heritage Agreement scheme is helping to overcome this deficiency.

The Department of Environment and Planning has a number of other programs which are assisting in biodiversity conservation evaluation and planning. These include the Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Wildlife Survey and Research program and Regional Biological Surveys program. To date, biological surveys have been done for Kangaroo Island, South East, Murray Mallee, Mount Lofty Ranges, Western Murray Flats and various parts of the pastoral zone. The aim is to eventually produce State-wide vegetation resource maps.

An essential part of the program is the management of remnant areas of bushland. Pilot management plans are being prepared for clusters of Heritage Agreement areas in the Murray Mallee and the program will be expanded as funding permits. The involvement of community groups such as Landcare and Communities of Common Concern, is an important part of this program.

Rare and threatened species of animals are being reintroduced to parts of their former habitat on both public and private reserves and sanctuaries. Concurrent with this program, South Australia is supporting research into the biological control of cats, rabbits and foxes being conducted under the Federal Biodiversity Program.

Conservation of biological diversity in Tasmania

Stephen Harris and Jennie Whinam, Department of Parks, Wildlife and Heritage

The Tasmanian approach to conserving biodiversity has traditionally been through reservation of land. Logging, mining and other such activities are not permitted within Tasmanian State Reserves (including National Parks) and such reserves require the consent of both Houses of Parliament for their revocation. Tasmania now has 22% of its land area in such secure reserves. In addition, the first 3 areas of coastal waters were recently proclaimed as marine nature reserves.

Most of the reserve system is skewed towards the less populated and more rugged western part of the state with the consequence that certain vegetation types are very well reserved. The priority areas for reservation or other conservation measures are in the lowland grasslands and grassy woodlands. Recent vegetation studies, for example, have shown a high number of rare or threatened plant species in such vegetation types. A recent inventory of the reservation and conservation status of Tasmanian native higher plants shows, for example, that almost 20% of native dicotyledonous angiosperms are either totally unreserved or poorly reserved, most of these occurring in the lowland dry sclerophyll vegetation, where reservation options are either non-existent or else very expensive.

The Department of Parks, Wildlife and Heritage, in co-operation with farmers and graziers representatives, is developing a legislative and bureaucratic mechanism for identifying and protecting rare and threatened plant and animal species, and vegetation communities on private land. When implemented this will be a major advance in the conservation of biological diversity in the State because it may slow down or prevent agricultural clearing on sites of importance. Although agricultural clearing has decreased overall in the last 20 years, Professor Kirkpatrick recently reported a rate of 6,000 hectares per annum of natural vegetation cleared between 1980-1988. The implementation of a mechanism described above still requires the development of inventories and lists of conservation and reservation status for particular groups, especially non-vascular plants and invertebrates.

Other efforts are being made to take account of biodiversity preservation. Implementation of the Recommended Areas for Protection proposed by the Interdepartmental Working Group for Forest Conservation will extend the range of forest types to be reserved. The efforts by various organisations in concert with the Department of Roads and Transport, to take account of native vegetation values when planning new roads or modifications to roads in an example of a broader awareness to protect biodiversity values in planning.

Conservation of biological diversity in Western Australia

Greg Keighery, Department of Conservation and Land Management

The Research Division in the Department of Conservation and Land Management aims to provide a 'scientific basis for conservation and land management in Western Australia by conducting research and providing advice'. It achieves this by providing a scientific basis for the conservation of native plant and animal species, ecosystems and natural processes throughout the state.

To manage research in such a diverse State, the division is divided into 15 programs, each run by a scientific leader. The biogeography program undertakes studies at a community level to ensure reserves accommodate all taxa adequately, and that the Department can monitor what is contained within its reserves.Individual species are studied by members of flora/fauna conservation programs. Flora conservation includes plant diseases (including dieback) research which has recently obtained a major Federal funding grant. Threatened species are also studied by members of flora conservation.Fauna species are studied by the Wetlands/Waterbirds and fauna programs.

Research here is on individual species (Numbats, Chuditch, Rock Wallabies, Short-Necked Swamp Tortoise) which are under considerable threat, with special emphasis on captive breeding and establishment of new colonies (Noisy Scrub-bird, desert mammals, numbats). Threatening processes, especially predation by foxes and cats, are now a major thrust of the programs.The Division also undertakes research on exploited animals and plants (eg, wood production, kangaroos, sandalwood, Boronia, ducks) to ensure that commercial (and private) harvesting does not endanger any of these communities and/or species. Unfortunately the Division currently lacks a permanent marine research component.

Biodiversity maintenance research involves communities and species studies, translating this across to operations and the public to ensure the State has a viable reserve network for its biota, and a degree of ex-situ conservation for wildlife species.

Conservation of biological diversity in the Northern Territory

Peter Whitehead, Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory.

The Northern Territory offers exciting opportunities for conservation of biological diversity. A short period of European settlement, an often harsh and unpredictable climate, sparse human population, and the isolation of large areas from reliable transport corridors have interacted to buffer the landscape from widespread change. For example, less than 0.2% of wooded habitats have been cleared for intensive agriculture or pastoralism. Nonetheless, there is no room for complacency.

Smaller arid zone mammals have declined catastrophically despite diffuse human activity. Altered fire regimes, grazing by exotic herbivores, or predation by introduced carnivores are some of the factors that may be implicated in this decline. Elsewhere in the Northern Territory, vertebrate assemblages (mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs) have been less severely disturbed than in most other parts of Australia. Indeed, the seasonal tropics of the Top End have been identified as a focus of biological diversity for vertebrate animals. However, it would be unwise to assume that this happy situation will prevail in the absence of active conservation efforts.

The very factors that have protected much of our wildlife have also slowed accrual of knowledge for detailed conservation planning. However, we do know that the existing reserve system does not adequately protect the full range of wildlife habitats. We are therefore faced with a difficult choice: between waiting while data are laboriously gathered before implementing comprehensive conservation strategies, or taking action now from a relatively weak information base.

The Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory has chosen the pre-emptive option. That is, to seek prompt implementation of a representative network of protected areas. Using a recently completed 1:1,000,000 vegetation map of 112 different floristic/structural formations as a primary source, and computer algorithms of the type developed by the CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology as analytical tools, configurations of sites will be derived to capture all mapped vegetation types. Successful capture of variation in dominant vegetation on unmodified landscapes should also encompass many other elements of the Territory's biological diversity. To refine network designs, configuration options will be matched with data on distribution of rare or endangered species of plants, animals, or important assemblages (eg, monsoon forests).

Implementation of an optimal reserve network will be a long and complex process, involving as it must land acquisitions, negotiation of agreements with traditional Aboriginal and other landholders, and enhancement of management infrastructures. Extending delays by waiting for better information is more likely to compromise conservation goals than to significantly improve the effectiveness of strategies for maintenance of biological diversity.

How do we decide where reserves should be?

Bob Pressey, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service

The selection of reserves has traditionally been regarded as a pragmatic enterprise, needing skills in judging opportunities provided by politics, issues of public concern and dramatic events. These skills are certainly important, but recent research by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service has established that success in conservation requires an injection of rigorous science into reserve planning. A project underway since 1987 is showing how reserves should and should not be selected. The wrong approach can jeopardise our chances of ever having systems of protected areas which are representative of natural environments and species.The project has two aspects. One is investigating the data needed to make decisions on reservation and the other is working on the best ways of making decisions once the data are gathered together.

The influence of the data base on assessments of reserve adequacy and scale

Because of our very incomplete picture of the distribution, abundance and requirements of most species, conservation plans usually assess the coverage of existing reserves and the need for new ones in relation to some form of land classification. In most cases, the classification is a map of natural resources which divides the landscape into vegetation types. Other subdivisions, such as land systems, are also used. These land classes give us an idea of the ecosystems or natural environments in a region and tell us something about the distribution and abundance of plants and animals. So far so good. Then we run into problems. The apparent adequacy of the existing reserves and the necessary extent of new reserves actually depend very much on the scale of mapping we happen to be using. At very coarse scales (eg 1:500,000) the existing reserves can look good – they represent a high proportion of the land classes in a region – and the extra reserve area needed might seem quite achievable. At finer scales of resolution (eg 1:50,000) the mappers have identified many more land classes in the same region, the existing reserves look much worse in terms of the proportion of classes represented, and the need for new reserves is much more dramatic.

So at what scale should we do these assessments? In general, the more detailed the scale the better. Our results show that the biological homogeneity of map units increases with finer scale. They also show that, up to a point, a limited reserve area designed to represent finer-scale land classes protects more species than the same reserve area selected to cover broad-scale land classes.

However, regardless of scale, any land class is an incomplete reflection of the biota. Reserve strategies which seek to represent rare and threatened species as well as land classes (the 'fine-filter' approach) help to make up for this limitation. Nevertheless, our inevitably limited information on the biota as a whole and our continued dependence on land classifications as a basis for conservation planning require us to learn much more about the efficacy of conserving biodiversity by protecting examples of land classes.

Reserve selection – the crucial step

The configuration and content of the world's protected areas have been largely determined by an opportunistic and ad hoc approach to reservation. But ad hoc reservation, if continued, will not get us where we want to go. In fact, it can jeopardise the long-term goal of representative reserve systems by missing key areas and accumulating natural features so inefficiently that we will simply run out of conservation options before the system represents all natural environments or species.Some systematic alternatives are needed. Our research has shown the importance of three principles of reserve selection:

1. Efficiency: given that only a small proportion of most regions will be dedicated to conservation, we should make sure that, as far as possible, the reserves in a network complement rather than duplicate one another. This will lead to relatively efficient representation of the features we want to protect.
2. Flexibility: in most regions, there are many ways of constructing fully representative reserve systems. Most procedures for reserve selection identify only one of these so that planners, right from the start, are narrowing their own options for achieving conservation goals. Approaches are needed which allow planners to appraise as many alternative networks as possible.
3. Irreplaceability: when all the possible representative networks for a region are identified, some sites occur more than others. This differential occurrence can be called irreplaceability because it determines the extent to which options for reservation are lost if the site is cleared or unavailable. We are working on ways of predicting this index and using it in the selection of new reserves.

We recognise that reserve selection in the real world must adapt to practical constraints and opportunities. However, we are sure that the achievement of conservation goals is much more likely if planners start with the three principles above before they compromise in the face of harsh reality. The alternative – starting the reserve planning process with pragmatic compromises – will simply continue the tradition of opportunistic reservation and will not take us where we say we want to go.

International update

United Nations Conference on Environment and Development

Five weeks of international negotiations leading up to the United Nations Conference on.Environment and Development (UNCED, or the 'Earth Summit'), were recently concluded in New York. This was the last of four preparatory meetings before UNCED, scheduled to take place from 3-14 June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. UNCED comes two decades after the first United Nations environmental conference, the UN Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972. It will be a vital opportunity for all countries to address global environmental problems and to develop co-operative approaches to ecologically sustainable development.

A number of outcomes relevant to the conservation of biological diversity are anticipated to emerge from Rio, including the Earth Charter, Agenda 21 and the signing of an International Convention on Biological Diversity

The Earth Charter will provide a general framework outlining rights and responsibilities regarding the global environment and development and is intended to act as a general guide to human actions and policies in these areas.

Agenda 21 will chart a course of action for addressing environment and development concerns into the 21st century. It is to include a chapter specifically on biological diversity, as well as chapters on a number of related issues, including deforestation, managing fragile ecosystems, sustainable agriculture and rural development, protection of the oceans, the role of indigenous peoples, and the integration of environment and development in decision-making. The successful resolution of issues such as international funding and financial mechanisms, technology transfer and international institutional arrangements necessary to implement Agenda 21 will be important for the outcomes at Rio.The recent meeting in New York was the last of four preparatory meetings before UNCED but much work remains to be completed before June and final negotiations on unresolved issues will take place in Rio.

Mrs Ros Kelly announced in late March that she will lead the Australian delegation to UNCED. The Minister for Resources, Mr Griffiths, and the Minister for Trade and Overseas Development, Mr Kerin, are also due to attend. The Australian delegation will include representatives of State and Territory Governments, non-government organisations, industry and unions, reflecting the importance which Australia attaches to UNCED.

International Convention on Biological Diversity

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Convention on Biological Diversity continued to make good progress.in Nairobi, where it met from 5-16 February 1992.

The Committee achieved a second reading of many of the articIes of the draft Convention text, which has been developed during international negotiations over the last year. While progress to date has been encouraging a number of difficult and important issues have yet to be resolved, particularly regarding the provision of financial and technological resources to enable developing countries to meet obligations under the Convention. The majority of developed countries have already accepted the position of developing countries that new and additional resources will need to be provided to developing countries.

Substantial agreement has been reached on conservation provisions such as identification and monitoring, in-situ and ex-situ conservation, sustainable use, research and training, and public education and awareness.

The current text emphasises that the implementation of the provisions of the Convention will be through national strategies, plans and programs.The final negotiating session before UNCED will be held in Nairobi from 11-20 May 1992. This session is intended to be followed by a short Diplomatic Conference for the adoption of the agreed text of the Convention. Providing negotiations are completed at the May meeting, the Convention will be open for signature in Rio at the time of UNCED.

Global Biodiversity Strategy

The Global Biodiversity Strategy, a guide for action to 'save, study and use Earth's biotic wealth sustainably and equitably' was launched in Caracas, Venezuela, on 11 February.

The Strategy was jointly produced by the World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Program, and was developed in consultation with a wide range of interested organisations and individuals around the world. The Commonwealth Department of the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories contributed to the Strategy and was represented on a small steering group which co-ordinated its development.

Dr Kenton Miller, Program Director on Forests and Biodiversity, WRI, made a presentation which dealt with the Global Biodiversity Strategy at the recent Fenner Environment Conference in Canberra. Extracts from Dr Miller's speech appear in this issue .

The Global Strategy has been developed to complement other international efforts to conserve biological diversity, such as the proposed Convention on Biological Diversity and Agenda 21. The Strategy presents 85 specific proposals for action at international, national and local leveIs and places emphasis on the need for economic development which is both people-oriented and conservation-based.

Copies of the Global Strategy may be obtained from World Resources Institute Publications, PO Box 4852, Hampden Station, Baltimore, Maryland 21211, USA. The cost is US$19.95 per copy plus US$3 for postage and handling.

Complimentary copies are available to journalists, government representatives and developing country non-government organisation representatives from Information/Distribution Coordinator, World Resources Institute, 1709 New York Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20006.

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