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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-04 Daily Xml
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BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH AND CONSERVATION

Ms BREUER (Giles) (14:30): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Conservation. Will the minister advise the house on action the government is taking to encourage conservation and research into our state's biodiversity?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for Early Childhood Development, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister Assisting the Premier in Cabinet Business and Public Sector Management) (14:30): I thank the honourable member for her question, and I note that she is a keen advocate for the natural environment in and around her electorate of Giles. The South Australian government has made a significant commitment to maintaining the biodiversity of our state. Our Strategic Plan contains an important specific target, that is, we lose no known native species through human impact, and that is a very ambitious target. In fact, we have found one: we have recovered—

The Hon. M.D. Rann: The Tamar Wallaby.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Yes; we have retrieved it from—

The Hon. M.D. Rann: New Zealand.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —New Zealand, and they are going very well. In fact, a very important program is being run on Yorke Peninsula at Innes National Park, where I think we are controlling vermin that were responsible for wiping out that important species.

We know that we cannot achieve these things single-handedly. We need the important work done by all areas of the South Australian community—universities, research bodies, local councils, volunteer groups and individuals—and that is why the South Australian government is very pleased to provide more than $200,000 in funding for conservation and research projects aimed at protecting South Australia's biodiversity.

These grants will be distributed throughout the community, and they will help us gain better knowledge of the issues that threaten South Australia's wildlife and give us information on how to address them. A number of the projects we have funded will take action to protect and conserve threatened plant and animal species. Some of these projects include:

an assessment of potential translocation sites for Mallee Emu-wren at Billiatt Conservation Park in the Murraylands;

sandhill dunnart monitoring in the Great Victoria Desert; and

conservation genetics of the endangered marsupial, the Southern Brown Bandicoot, in south-eastern South Australia.

We have also allocated money for research projects because, to conserve our environment, we need to understand it. These projects will arm us with information we need to protect some of our most threatened flora and fauna. They include studies into:

the black-flanked Rock Wallaby ecology of the APY lands;

increasing community awareness to better manage habitat and biodiversity for the vulnerable ground-dwelling bird, the Bush Stone-curlew, in the Murraylands;

pup production assessment of the Australian sea lion at Dangerous Reef and English Island; and

developing a screening tool to determine the impact of climate change on seed germination in threatened native plant species.

I take this opportunity to congratulate all successful grant applicants and thank them for their hard work that is so important to the future of our environment.

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