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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-09-16 Daily Xml
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NATIVE FLORA AND FAUNA

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:30): I move:

That this house urges the state government, in partnership with the federal government, local government and non-government agencies, to significantly expand its commitment to the protection of South Australia's unique flora and fauna.

I will start by pointing out that our record in South Australia in regard to the protection of flora and fauna is not good: in fact, it is bad, and I will give some statistics.

Before I do so, I note that there has been a lot of focus recently on climate change, which is important, and carbon tax, carbon offsets and so on. Whilst that is very important—and I am not a climate denier in any way, shape or form—it is like focusing on the roof on your house and not worrying about what is inside. If you are not careful, you might bring about a change in relation to climate but in the process lose the biodiversity underneath that environmental roof.

Looking at the statistics, approximately 97 per cent of pre-European settlement vegetation on the Adelaide Plains has been removed. In the other regions of the state, less than 15 per cent is left in the Mount Lofty Ranges region, much of which is compromised by weeds and other forms of impact. The City of Onkaparinga council area, which is generally regarded as having significant vegetation, has less than 9 per cent left, and the City of Mitcham, one of the council areas that has a significantly higher coverage of native vegetation because of the hills face zone and some of its very sensible policies and attempts to protect the vegetation, has a coverage of about 27 per cent.

Land clearance rates in South Australia show why we have so little left. In the decade between 1980 and 1990, 28,800 hectares a year were cleared, which reduced to 1,370 hectares per year in the period 1991-95. That is a welcome reduction, but by that stage much of the damage had already been done. I acknowledge that governments over time have brought in things such as heritage agreements with farmers and that there has been a change of attitude amongst most of our farming community, who recognise that it is important to protect biodiversity.

What we have now in South Australia is a predicted increase in the number of threatened plant species, as a percentage of all known plant species, from 20 per cent in 1998 rising to 36 per cent in 2006. That is a significant and worrying increase in threatened plant species. Approximately 25 per cent of all native plants and animals recorded in South Australia are considered to be threatened due to historical loss of habitat, and 63 per cent of mammals are considered to be threatened.

I can go on by highlighting some of those statistics, and they are backed up by the details relating to extinct fauna in South Australia. There are 17 examples there, sadly. I will not use their technical name, I will just use their common name. These are just some that are extinct: the eastern bettong, the brush-tailed bettong, the desert rat-kangaroo, the pig-footed bandicoot, the white-footed rabbit-rat, the Kangaroo Island emu, the Rufous hare wallaby, the eastern hare wallaby, the lesser stick-nest rat, the Tammar wallaby (although that, I think, has been brought back to one of our islands), the Toolache wallaby, the lesser bilby, the short-tailed hopping-mouse, the long-tailed hopping-mouse, the crescent nail-tail wallaby, the desert bandicoot, Gould's mouse and the grey groundsel. That is 17, and more are under threat.

Looking at endangered fauna in South Australia—and, again, I will not list them all—there are 23. Their common names are: the Regent honeyeater, the blue whale, the red-tailed black-cockatoo, the glossy black-cockatoo (there are two variations: the Kangaroo Island one and the general South Australian one), the spot-tailed quoll, the northern royal albatross, the Amsterdam albatross, the southern right whale and the swift parrot, and the list goes on. I will not read them all out.

When one looks at endangered flora in South Australia, that list numbers something like 37. It includes: the chalky wattle, jumping-jack wattle, flat-leaved wattle, Spiller's wattle, Whibley wattle, Mount Compass oak-bush, white-beauty spider orchid, pink-lipped spider orchid, and many other orchids, and so on, which are in danger of becoming extinct.

The protection of native flora and fauna in South Australia to some extent has gone off the radar. When people talk about protecting the environment, there are different facets to it, but we all know, if we understand ecology, that all aspects of the environment are interrelated and interdependent. Some people seem to take a long time to understand that when we talk about the web of life we are talking about that interdependence and interrelatedness, and ultimately everyone is connected with the total environment.

When people say 'save the environment', you are going to have an environment of one kind or another, the question is: what is it going to comprise? You can have an environment which is not ideal but you will still have an environment. You never permanently save the environment because it is constantly under challenge from a whole lot of areas and it is always under threat.

The government has a 'no species loss' policy, but that seems to get swept aside when the government is looking at things such as planning legislation and other measures. I stress to the government, and I think there is also a message in here for the Liberal Party, that there are a lot of people in the community who do care about the natural environment. If the Liberal Party wants to win the metropolitan area it must develop its environmental credentials and be seen as being pro-environment.

Over time there have been people in the Liberal Party who have been passionate about the natural environment. Brookman was quite passionate, and we have had many others in recent times, such as David Wotton. I think it is very important that the Liberal Party not just be seen as pro-environment but that it embraces aspects of protecting the natural environment because, if it ever wants to win government and win the metropolitan area, we now have a generation that has been brought up with a greater understanding of the environment (imperfect as it may be) and is looking carefully at what the parties are offering in terms of protecting the environment—and I think the recent federal election highlights that.

The Greens' vote has gone up substantially, and I will predict that it will keep rising. I do not agree with all the policies of the Greens—I think that, in relation to nuclear energy, they are taking a bit of a luddite approach. I think that the major parties kid themselves if they do not understand that the community at large is putting increasing importance on the environment and that, by definition, has to include protecting native fauna and flora.

I have often been on the hobbyhorse about trying to get the Adelaide City Council to do more in terms of promoting our indigenous flora, particularly that which is endemic to the Adelaide Plain. I am not against planting exotics. I think I have exotics in my front yard and backyard—but we have some fantastic native plants which we could be showcasing in the City of Adelaide for tourists and others and because they have a lot of environmental aspects to them. I think the challenge is to get a better balance in the area of the City of Adelaide, much more like what they have done in Perth where they do celebrate using their local kangaroo paw and other flora to highlight the natural resources and attributes of Western Australia.

I am sure we will see it today in the budget. I am sure there will be a cut to the Department for Environment and Heritage, and so they will be less able to manage the reserves and so on they have. It is important to set aside nature reserves in parks of one kind or another, but you have to manage those areas against weeds, undertake cool burns and so on. I have an inkling, from what I have heard, that the budget today will reveal more cuts to the Department for Environment and Heritage. That runs counter to the claim of the government that it is committed to a no species loss.

What we have sometimes is a focus on certain creatures like dolphins. They are nice creatures—I do not know them personally. However, because they supposedly represent human attributes, we take a particular liking to certain creatures—whales and dolphins—because we are told that they are intelligent. We like koalas because, presumably, they look like some people in our community, but other equally important fauna do not get a look-in. Although, I have been heartened to hear in talking to farmers (and I have a lot to do with people in rural areas) that there is a greater understanding now of the importance of a whole range of our native fauna and flora. They understand better than I think ever before the inter-relationship, and that if you destroy habitat, you have destroyed the fauna that could live there.

So, we have what appears to be an unusual approach. We say that you cannot export native fauna because we will deplete the stocks and so on, but, at the same time, we allow the destruction of the habitat which gets rid of them absolutely and totally. We have a long way to go in South Australia. I am heartened by the excellent work done by people in Trees For Life with their bushcare sites, Nature Foundation, Nature Conservation Society—I support both of those groups—and there are other groups as well. We have people like Dr Paton at Adelaide university and Professor Chris Daniels, top people who are really committed to trying to protect what little is left of South Australia's flora and fauna.

People might not think it is a sexy topic, but it is a fundamental one. We are going to be judged harshly in the future if we allow this list of threatened native plants and animals to increase and to add to the animals and plants that are already extinct in South Australia. We have one of the worst environmental records in the world of any nation. We go around talking about how we are committed to the environment, but the record in South Australia is absolutely appalling, and if you look at some areas such as the Mid North and the Yorke Peninsula—and we know it was largely ignorance—there are a lot of absolutely bare areas which have been denuded of the flora and therefore the fauna on a large scale. We can try to revegetate some of that, but you cannot revegetate something which has developed over millions of years.

Planting a tree to replace something that has evolved in an area over millions of years is just fanciful. It does not mean you should not do it, but that is the second-best option. The best option is to protect the remnant vegetation and the remnant fauna in the first place, rather than try to come back with a patch-up job later.

I commend the motion to the house, and I trust that both the major parties and others in here will take on board this very serious situation and ensure that future generations can appreciate and enjoy the fantastic fauna and flora in this state.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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