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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-15 Daily Xml
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REMNANT NATIVE VEGETATION

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:53): I move:

That this house calls on the state and federal governments to do more to protect and enhance remnant native vegetation habitat in this state.

Members realise that this has been a hobby horse of mine for a while, and it is still a critical issue. It is borne out by the fact that, when Europeans came to this land, to this state in particular, naturally they had to clear native vegetation to grow crops, build houses, and so on—we all know that—but there was not enough consideration given to protecting and preserving remnant native vegetation. We have now reached the point where, in the Adelaide Plains, less than 3 per cent of the pre-European vegetation is left.

If you look at other areas, particularly the higher rainfall areas, the Mount Lofty Ranges has less than 15 per cent of its original vegetation left, and much of that has been compromised by the infestation of weeds and by some people who have no regard for native vegetation and ride their trail bikes and mountain bikes through it, and so on.

When we look at some of the municipalities within the metropolitan area, the City of Onkaparinga has less than 9 per cent native vegetation left and the City of Mitcham has a higher percentage—27 per cent—and that is because much of that encompasses the hills face zone.

I know people say there are things happening like Trees for Life, which does a wonderful job planting trees. I commend the government on its scheme, I think it is now called the three million trees scheme; that is great, but replanting, as good and desirable as that is, can never equate to something that has evolved over 600 million years. There is no way in the world that you can replant an area and then say that it is equivalent to an area that has evolved over 600 million years.

There are those who accept the creationist view, and that is their choice, but whether you have a creationist view of the natural world or an evolutionary view, or a bit of both, the reality is that we are dealing with something that is very special and unique and yet increasingly under threat, even today.

In South Australia, in the 1980 to 1990 decade, there were 28,000-plus hectares cleared a year. Between 1991 and 1995 it was down to 1,370 hectares a year, and I suspect that now it is less, but the damage has been done in terms of threat to species. The number of threatened plant species has increased from 20 per cent in 1998 to 36 per cent in 2006, and that threat continues because the smaller the area, in terms of habitat, the greater the threat and the risk to plant species.

Likewise, for mammals in South Australia, the figure that I have been given of those that are considered to be threatened due to historical loss of habitat is 63 per cent. Overall, Australia has the worst record of mammal extinction in the world, and the major cause of biodiversity loss is land clearing.

As I have said, we all need to eat, we need places to live, and therefore you have to clear some vegetation, but the surest way of wiping out a plant or an animal is to destroy their habitat. I can understand why we say that to shoot a koala is a criminal offence, but if you destroy the habitat, which is a more effective way of killing them, that is okay. That seems to me to be a bit bizarre, a bit strange.

So, what do we need to do now? There has been a proposal put forward by Associate Professor David Paton of Adelaide University, who, I have noticed, was appointed to a federal government board this week. He is very knowledgeable about birds, in particular, but other animal species as well.

He has been advocating that the government (state or federal) needs to spend at least $10 million in securing high rainfall areas to preserve what remains of our, particularly small birds, but not just small birds, the birds that we used to see as children in the hills, the blue wrens and the red robins, which you rarely see now. There are still some there but they are under threat. His plan was to sell off part of Glenthorne, but that was not allowed. I would urge the state government and the federal government—I will be contacting Peter Garrett, the federal minister—to see if they can come up with the $10 million necessary to secure the habitat to protect those threatened areas in the hills.

Recently, the federal minister, Peter Garrett, said that they did not want to focus on individual species but, as has been pointed out by experts in the area, some of the associations between species are so critical that if you ignore an individual species you upset the whole ecosystem. There are things like fungi and so on that may not seem important, but they are important because of their effect on vegetation, animal life and so on. So, there is a move to try to get the federal government to reconsider that approach.

Importantly, $10 million out of a state budget of over $10,000 million is literally a drop in the ocean, and I would urge the government to expand and extend the areas that are remnant vegetation, particularly in the Adelaide Hills, but also other high rainfall areas. I commend the current minister, the previous minister and the minister before for what they have done in terms of adding to the national parks system. It does not always have to be in the national parks system, you can do heritage agreements, but we really need a vigorous effort to protect what remains of remnant vegetation and the plants and animals that are contained therein.

Debate adjourned.


[Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00]


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