Every five or ten years Western Australia’s emus undertake mass migrations in search of food. On the way they encounter the 1,170km State Barrier Fence, which seeks to stop dingos, emus and kangaroos entering farms.
A large proportion of these emus die of starvation, after becoming tangled in the fence, or are shot. The WA Government’s current plan to extend the fence poses even more serious threats to the region’s native plants and animals.
Previously known as the “rabbit-proof fence”, the barrier has failed to stop feral rabbits invading farms. The fence has now been turned against native fauna.
The WA Government plans to build a multi-million dollar, 490km extension of the existing fence, creating a largely continuous barrier through five bioregions from north of Geraldton to Cape Arid.
The extension will cut through the largest intact temperate woodland on earth, the Great Western Woodlands.
The WA Government, under pressure from farmers, will argue they are removing threats to stock and crops. They must also acknowledge however that they are creating another, potentially greater, long-term threat to native flora and fauna.
A key issue here is that there has not been an adequate, transparent cost-benefit analysis. Will there be a net profit from building the fence? A thorough cost-benefit analysis would consider the relative costs and benefits of different ways of solving the problem. It would also consider all of the costs, including the impacts on Australia’s natural heritage.
And the impacts are most likely substantial. A recent report Dr Jenny Lau (Birdlife Australia) and I prepared for the Ecological Society of Australia, the peak group for Australian ecologists, lists three areas where the State Barrier Fence could be undermining natural processes. Peer-reviewed research suggests that the barrier fence is likely to increase fox and cat numbers by excluding dingos, fragment populations of native species and stop seed dispersal.
Emus inadvertently disperse native seeds because they eat fruits from a range of native plants. Emus are estimated to transport seeds from 12 to more than 200 plant species, depending on the region. Emus travel long distances, and by restricting their natural movement the fence is also preventing dispersal of seeds.
In the absence of this dispersal, plant species may decline across large areas. Isolated populations, with no source of replenishment, may die out. This is particularly concerning for the future because many species need to alter their ranges due to global warming. Plants that no longer have the ability to travel long distances inside an emu may not survive accelerating rates of climate change because they cannot keep up with the shifting climate.
Australia needs forward thinking management to sustain natural heritage through climate change. The three consequences of the State Barrier Fence illustrate that the fence is inconsistent with these ideals. We need to enable native species to shift their range to stay within their climatic tolerances. Instead of providing dingo-free space where cats and foxes can flourish, we need to reduce pressures from feral predators so that larger populations of native species survive and have a chance to adapt to climate change.
Unfortunately with this fence, the WA Government is going in the opposite direction.
As it stands, there is certainly enough evidence of important environmental concerns to immediately halt all work on the extension to the State Barrier Fence. The next step is for the WA Government to support a transparent assessment of the costs and benefits of the fence.
My guess is that the costs to farmers of crop damage caused by migrating emus once every five to ten years will be dwarfed by the expense of building and maintaining the fence combined with the cost of the lost ecosystem services provided by migrating emus. Alternative solutions need to be sought.
It is time for the value of Australia’s natural heritage to be fully included in the development equation.
Leah Gibbs
Lecturer in Human Geography at University of Wollongong
Fantastic article, Don. You've identified key ideas in natural resource management: transparency in decision-making; and decision-making that takes into account *all* relevant factors. In this case - as in so many - this includes highly complex whole-of-ecosystem processes, socio-economic factors, and that most often marginalised realm of the ethics of the nonhuman world. You've considered them all so clearly here.
Of course, natural resource decision-making that doesn't consider this complex suite of issues also misses out on the potential benefits to industry brought by, in this case, migrating emus. Here, that benefit is seed stock that has the potential to provide fodder for livestock. 'Win-win', as they say. There is so much to be said for a whole-of-ecosystem approach. Thanks for your great piece.
Suzy Gneist
logged in via Facebook
Agreed, Leah, great piece. Though I'd add a third 'win' to that: native species, society/economy and the environment. Have we not progressed in our methods from these ultimately ineffective and expensive barriers? There needs to be a new way of looking at solutions that do not cause more harm.
Peter Volker
Professional forester
There is a proposal to build a barrier across the Freycinet Peninsula to protect the Tasmanian Devil from the spread of facial tumor disease. The fence is to be 1.5m high, but the issue is the main road and how to make that an effective part of the barrier.
As I understand the Devils are vulnerable to the disease as they have a very low level of genetic diversity. Although I have not heard any discussion of whether the species have been through a genetic "bottleneck" in the past or any other…
Read moreJon Altman
Research Professor in Anthropology at Australian National University
This is a very well researched and thought provoking article. There has been a growing environmental focus advocating for wildlife corridors especially with the inevitable threats to biodiversity from climate change. But if wildlife barriers are to be erected on this scale it makes a mockery of such an aspiration for massive corridors. I would be interested to know and Don may be able to assist if we have GIS coordinates for the fence to see what land tenures in WA the State Barrier Fence traverses. For example if it is erected over native title lands one could envisage that its impact on native fauna and flora could be challenged on the grounds that it is impacting on the rights of native title groups to customary use of resources counter to s211 of the Native Title Act.
trevor prowse
retired farmer
If you drive anywhere in the south west of Western Australia you can see emus grazing on farm land, so the thought that the fence will reduce the seed distribution may be limited , but not stopped by the barrier fence.
Foxes and cats are systematically shot and poisoned every summer in WA ,because they kill newborn lambs and kill small native animals
.Rainfall in the pastoral areas has not decreased , because the clearing of native vegatation for crops and sheep , has allowed the winter fronts to move east more quickly than prior to the land being cleared. Also the increase in CO2 has an ability to increase plant growth, estimated world wide to have increased food production by an average of 14%.
George Wilson
Adjunct Professor
Well argued Don. I agree, alternative solutions are needed. These and many other animals used to be harvested sustainably by Indigenous Australians. Today too many of us resile from such use. The wider Australian society, invokes a complex set of value-judgements which in my view don't withstand scrutiny. The consequent booms and busts of many wildlife populations is bad for both long-term conservation of the species, their environment and their welfare as sentient animals.
Your concerns about…
Read morePeter Gerard
Retired medical practitioner
This is an excellent article but tells a very sad story that is common where ever farmers and their incomes are threatened by one native animal or another. To suggest that controlled 'harvesting', as practiced by indigenous peoples before settlement, is impractical I would have thought. One solution, that has little chance of ever being considered, is to determine and thus limit the areas suitable for farming and protect these effectively without resorting to inhumane methods. The rest of the extensively forested area should be declared a national park and further fence extensions abandoned. We need to jettison the idea that Australia has a responsibility to feed the burgeoning world population. Protecting our native vegetation and wildlife is more important than never ending[ and often marginal ] wheat paddocks. Unfortunately, given human avarice and complicit like-minded governments, the emus, kangaroos and other wildlife plus native vegetation will be the losers.
Jon Altman
Research Professor in Anthropology at Australian National University
Peter I am not sure that contemporary wildlife harvesting is 'impractical'; there is plenty of evidence from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey 2008 that where people have access to land and resources they participate in hunting, fishing, gathering see http://epress.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ch091.pdf My other point though is that people may have these rights under native title law so that the commercial and state avarice that you refer to may actually be legally regulated by the now recognised common law rights of native title groups if the State Barrier Fence impacts negatively on their interests, at the very least they might need to be financially compensated for impairment of customary rights which might require a more thorough assessment of costs and benefits.
Gary Gyuk
Marine Biologist
I agree! You're not an idiot.
Thanks for letting me use your phone
Keith Bradby, Director, Gondwana Link
Director
Thanks Don for doing such a good job of shining rational light on this silly, silly fence proposal from the 'wild west'. We have been trying to stimulate an informed discussion on these proposals, and the impact of the existing Barrier Fence, for some years now but the political pork barrelling involved has been overwhelming. It seems that, unfortunately, this is one of those issues where a national perspective is needed to counter the the self interest of a few loud and locally well connected…
Read moreAnthony Nolan
Ruminant
Fences for reffos and fences for emus. What on earth is wrong with West Aussie? A strange state of mind, it seems, that this slaughter is allowed and now the government there proposes to extend the fence. Does the WA coat of arms feature a pork chop?