Life on the West Island - Grim findings

This week, the West Island Minister for the Environment (Tanya Plibersek) presented the most recent five-year State of the Environment Report. This detailed document was completed last year and handed to the coalition’s then Minister, Sussan Ley. In an apparent attempt to prevent it becoming an election issue, Ms Ley did not make it public, now claiming that she had no legal obligation to do so. Perhaps that is not surprising, as the outgoing government had an obsession with secrecy and a reputation for running away from problems and/or blaming them on everyone else.

Minister Plibersek had no such compunction. She announced that the expert report had found that the nation’s environment was in “a poor and deteriorating state.” She laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Morrison government, saying that the report tells a story of crisis and decline in Australia's environment and of a decade of government inaction and wilful ignorance.

Writing in The Conversation, three senior professors from Sydney universities produced a worrying summary of the report:

Climate change is exacerbating pressures on every Australian ecosystem and Australia now has more foreign plant species than native, according to the highly anticipated State of the Environment Report. The report also found the number of listed threatened species rose 8% since 2016 and more extinctions are expected in the next decades. The document represents thousands of hours of work over two years by more than 30 experts.

These prominent academics said that the report was mostly depressing, despite some bright spots. They focussed on four main headings:

1. The nation’s environment is generally deteriorating

There have been continued declines in the amount and condition of our natural capital – native vegetation, soil, wetlands, reefs, rivers and biodiversity. Such resources benefit Australians by providing food, clean water, cultural connections and more. The number of plant and animal species listed as threatened in June 2021 was 1,918, up from 1,774 in 2016. Our coasts are also under threat from, for instance, extreme weather events and land-based invasive species. Our nearshore reefs are in overall poor condition due to substandard water quality, invasive species and marine heatwaves. Inland water systems, including in the Murray Darling Basin, are under increasing pressure.

1. Climate change threatens every ecosystem

Climate change is compounding ongoing and past damage from land clearing, invasive species, pollution and urban expansion. The intensity and frequency of extreme weather events are changing. Over the last five years, extreme events such as floods, droughts, wildfires, storms, and heatwaves have affected every part of Australia. Seasonal fire periods are becoming longer. In NSW, for example, the bushfire season now extends to almost eight months. Extreme events are also affecting ecosystems in ways never before documented. For example, the downstream effects of the 2019-2020 bushfires introduced a range of contaminants to coastal estuaries, in the first global record of bushfires impacting estuarine habitat quality.

1. Environmental management isn’t well coordinated

Our investment is not proportional to the grave environmental challenge. The area of land and sea under some form of conservation protection has increased, but the overall level of protection is declining within reserves. We’re reducing the quantity and quality of native habitat outside protected areas through, for instance, urban expansion on land and over-harvesting in the sea. We are also increasingly relying on costly ways to conserve biodiversity. This includes restoration of habitat, reintroducing threatened species and translocation (moving a species from a threatened habitat to a safer one).

1. Environmental decline and destruction is harming our well-being

This report documents the direct effects of environmental damage on human health, for example from bushfire smoke. The indirect benefits of a healthy environment to mental health and well-being are harder to quantify. But emerging evidence suggests people who manage their environment according to their values and culture have improved well-being, such as for Indigenous rangers and communities. Environmental destruction also costs our economy billions of dollars, with climate change and biodiversity loss representing both national and global financial risks.

In a report which is mostly damning of government and corporate inaction and of wilful damage to the environment, the report finds a ray of hope, by identifying that Indigenous knowledge and management are helping deliver on-ground change:

Indigenous people of Australia have cared for the lands and seas over countless generations and continue to do so today. There is a complex web of government laws and agreements relating to Indigenous people and the environment. Overall, they are not adequate to deliver the rights Indigenous people seek: responsibility for and stewardship of their Country including lands and seas, plants and animals, and heritage. For the first time, this report has a separate Indigenous chapter, informed by Indigenous consultation meetings, which highlights the importance of caring for Country.

This includes traditional fire management, which is being recognised as vital knowledge by land management organisations and government departments. For example, Indigenous rangers manage 44% of the national protected area estate, and more than 2,000 rangers are funded under the federal government’s Indigenous rangers program. Work must still be done to empower Indigenous communities and enable Indigenous knowledge systems to improve environmental and social outcomes.

Despite its overall grim tone, the report does point a way forward for the West Island environment:

Individuals, non-government organisations and businesses are increasingly purchasing and managing significant tracts of land for conservation. The Australian Wildlife Conservancy, for example, jointly manages some 6.5 million hectares actively conserving many threatened species. By building on achievements such as these, we can encourage new partnerships and innovations, supported with crucial funding and commitment from government and industry. We also need more collaboration across governments and non-government sectors, underpinned by greater national leadership. This includes listening and co-developing solutions with Indigenous and local communities, building on and learning from Indigenous and Western scientific knowledge.