Western Australia’s head of national parks management says it would be difficult for the state to conserve 30 per cent of its lands by 2030, despite the state endorsing an international target for Australia to do so.
Key points:
- WA has endorsed a national target that will see Australia protect 30 per cent of its land by 2030
- The state is on track to add 5 million hectares to its conservation estate by 2024
- Nearly half of WA’s parks and reserves could soon be jointly managed with traditional owners
At a meeting of the nation’s environment ministers in October, WA endorsed a national target that would ensure 30 per cent of Australia’s land and marine areas were protected by the end of the decade.
But WA does not have a policy on how much land and sea it will contribute to help Australia meet its target.
Peter Sharp has been at the forefront of parks creation and management for two decades at the WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA).
The Parks and Visitor Services executive director told the ABC that while WA had not committed to achieving a 30 per cent conservation target itself, there were still opportunities to protect more lands.
“I’m doubtful that we could achieve that target by 2030 … but I don’t know, it’s like a bit of crystal ball gazing,” Mr Sharp said.
“There is opportunity for us to be exploring how we work with private landholders, pastoral lessees, other Aboriginal lands, to put in place management frameworks that would meet that international obligation that Australia is signing up to.
“It doesn’t all have to be in national parks and reserves.”
More than 50 nations in early 2021 pledged to reserve 30 per cent of their land and water for protection by 2030, with Australia only signing up to the international pledge in October last year.
WA is a big place, even by world standards
If WA was an independent country, it would be the 10th largest in the world due to its land mass of 2,527,013 square kilometres and 115,740 square kilometres of water.
According to federal data from 2020, about 59.1 million hectares of land in WA, about 23.3 per cent of the state, is registered in the national reserve system.
Nearly 40 per cent of those reserves are classified under the global International Union for Conservation of Nature standard’s two highest protection categories, which preclude activities like mining and agriculture.
A state government spokeswoman said the national target would be supported by its Plan for Our Parks program, which aimed to add 5 million hectares of conservation estate by early 2024.
“We’re committed to working with our federal, state and territory colleagues to expand the national reserve system in a united approach to protect our precious environment,” she said.
Plan for Our Parks was a Labor government initiative launched in 2019 that gave the green light to turn about 70 per cent of 7.2 million hectares of land acquired by DBCA over the years into reserves or national parks.
Mr Sharp said 1.2 million hectares of land had been processed through the program so far and that figure would reach 2.5 million in May.
“We’re pretty confident that we will hit the 5 million hectares target by February 2024,” he said.
WA Greens MLC Brad Pettitt said Plan for Our Parks needed to be expanded and better resourced if WA was to do its fair share in meeting the national target.
He said DBCA needed to be better funded to both grow the conservation estate and be able to manage it all.
“We are facing a biodiversity crisis in parallel to the climate crisis,” Dr Pettitt said.
“The previous target of 5 million hectares of national and marine parks and reserves over five years is not sufficient if we are to halt species decline and extinction.”
Targeting key areas
Wilderness Society WA campaigns manager Patrick Gardner said the aspiration to conserve 30 per cent of the country only made sense if the land had a high biodiversity value and was threatened species habitat.
“Large-scale land conservation targets will be fatally flawed if we continue to explore for fossil fuels, open new areas to fracking or decimate native vegetation via logging and land clearing,” he said.
Australia is broken down into 89 bioregions and 25 of them are in WA.
Mr Sharp said the state represented a third of Australia’s landmass and subsequently offered a diverse range of ecological systems.
He said previously under-represented regions like the Gascoyne and Murchison were seeing more parks created but it would be difficult to add to the conservation estate in the Pilbara due to its minerals interests.
Joint management increasing
Currently 21 per cent of WA’s conservation estate is jointly managed with traditional owners.
But with the additional 5 million hectares and joint pathways starting in the wake of the South West Native Title Settlement, Mr Sharp said there would be even more of these arrangements.
“We will be approaching 50 per cent of all of the reserves and lands we manage being subjected to a joint management arrangement,” he said.
Mr Sharp said there were also opportunities with the divestment of ex-Aboriginal Lands Trust areas, which cover about 9 per cent of the state.
“There are some groups coming to us saying, ‘We’d like to have these added into the conservation state’,” he said.
“We’re saying, ‘Well, that’ll be a matter for government and a future process at the moment’.”