Tim Flannery’s recent Quarterly Essay, After the Future, questions whether Australian national parks will become “marsupial ghost towns” despite the tens of millions of dollars governments spend on them to protect biodiversity.
He canvases some alternatives, which I think are too timid given the scale of the problem. One of these is to focus on preserving species, rather than landscapes or ecosystems.
There is no question Australia’s biodiversity is in crisis, matching what is happening globally. Climate change is set to exacerbate this crisis – exactly how three degrees of global warming over this century will play out is unclear, but it is absolutely certain that the changes to biological systems will be substantial.
There is no question that climate change will have a massive effect on national parks. For example, the snow line in Kosciusko National Park will retreat hundreds of meters upslope, drastically reducing the extent and duration of snow cover. Likewise, in Kakadu National Park, sea level rise will inundate the freshwater floodplains with saltwater.
These changes, although tragic, do not undermine the primary mission of these national parks as refuges from direct exploitation by humans (such as mining, forestry, agriculture, and dams).
National parks will change as nature adapts to new landscapes, and species assemblages develop as a consequence.
There is a tension between managing national parks and managing species that may or may not be protected in them. Climate change will also add to the queue of species poised for extinction.
Making endangered species the primary focus of conservation effort is a dangerous trap. Funds are not sufficient to save all species, and climate change will dwarf current demands. It is for these reasons conservation biologists are using hard-nosed prioritisation to figure where the best return on investment lies. Such approaches weights the value people place on species – Tasmanian Devils are more valuable to more people than a drab moth.
Many species are going to have to take their evolutionary chances, and national parks help with their odds of survival.
The only real twist from mainstream thinking in Flannery’s argument is his forthright championing of the role non-government conservation organisations play in protecting endangered species. He thinks this sector deserves a greater slice of government funding for biodiversity conservation and land management.
There is an important place for non-government organisations (NGOs) to help conserve species and landscapes that remain outside the national park estate. But these efforts should not be instead of national parks and reserves but in addition to them. The real contribution of NGOs is being able to work independently of government funding, pursuing management strategies that may not be possible in national parks.
To claim that the NGO conservation sector has much greater capacity to achieve conservation outcomes misses several important points. NGOs have the luxury of picking simple conservation goals, and are only answerable to their membership. In sharp contrast national parks must satisfy a range of competing demands.
Consider Kakadu National Park: this property is jointly managed by the traditional landowners and the Australian government, making for far more complicated decision-making compared to most other land tenures.
Likewise, managers of Kosciusko National Park must balance massive tourism developments with more routine tasks such as bushfire management, weed management and feral animal management.
None of these activities are easy tasks, but the control of horses that are destroying alpine wetlands is the most vexed. At a recent meeting there was an audible gasp when I said that I looked forward to the time when the percentage of the Kosciusko entrance fee used for lethal control of horses was proudly reported along with the breakdown of other expenditures which maintain the park’s values. The legacy of The Man from Snowy River makes the logical use of lethal control of feral horses currently politically impossible.
Parks Victoria National Parks logo – “healthy parks healthy people” – says it how it actually is. The reality is that national park management must serve people, and their diverse needs and values, as well as conserving biodiversity. This places a substantial transactional cost on running national parks – they are economically “inefficient” because they are necessarily inclusive of a range of activities, including biodiversity conservation.
The NGO conservation sector has not solved the extinction crisis any better than government managers. The causes of small mammal extinctions in northern Australia, past and present, remain elusive; they involve many factors. Research is active in this area, although we now know that a runaway vicious cycle of fire and grass is pre-eminent. This grass-fire cycle will only get worse, given the spread of numerous introduced flammable grasses, including some truly gigantic species.
One known way to control these flammable grasses is the use of large herbivores. Indeed, there is evidence that the small mammal extinctions in Kakadu National Park accelerated following the removal of feral buffalo herds.
I expect that the strategic use of mega-herbivores will be pivotal in maintaining ecosystem function in areas invaded by flammable grasses. But before we can adopt that strategy we must accept that the feral animals are now an established part of the Australian biota.
These feral animals may provide important ecosystem services. So rather than perpetuating doomed attempts at total elimination, we should manage the herds constructively. Additionally, we need to recognise the invaluable part recreational shooters can play in such sustainable land management by controlling feral animals and stopping their populations from irrupting and causing substantial environmental harms.
Because invasive grasses are degrading vast areas of landscape outside national parks, and the future of surviving mega-fauna is bleak globally, why not establish some safari or game parks?
Why not also breed rhino and elephant to supply the unquenchable Chinese appetite for horn and tusk? What is so special about cattle production in our rangelands?
Why not build some fenced outdoor zoos in the little fragments of bushland near cities, so people can see the surviving mammal assemblages?
Along with NGO biodiversity reserves, we should proudly acknowledge the above are legitimate conservation strategies. But let’s not pretend these approaches are substitutes for our national parks.
It is easy to bag national park management as a failure. To do this ignores the fact national parks have a sovereign guarantee and are far more likely to endure than NGO biodiversity properties. Withdrawing funding from national parks is like a homeowner figuring that – rather than paying home insurance – the money would be better spent gambling the stock markets. It’s a great idea until disaster strikes.
Rather than defunding and degazetting national parks we should be increasing funding. Better still we should make our national parks truly national as is the case in the US – a first step would be placing all our World Heritage Areas under federal control, federal management and associated funding.
Chris Owens
Professional
A lot of valid points which add to the Flannery narrative.
Government land managers seem to be welded on to old strategies and methodologies. In my local area relatively large national parks are without a whole suite of native animals due to human induced local extinctions attributable to past land management practices. With these factors now removed, there is a refusal of the land managers to allow the reintroduction of these species as they may create ongoing management issues (read costs). Budgets are already cut to the bone and there is no willingness to be exposed to further demands on the budget. Therefore relatively large areas of habitat are without their full compliment of suitable (and available) species.
Reintroduction of animals seems to be a taboo subject, and instead in our lifetime we will watch many species go extinct whilst we sit on our hands.
Felix MacNeill
Environmental Manager
Chris, I think in many ways, you (and David) have pretty much nailed the main problem, and it's depressingly simple: 'budgets cut to the bone.' Under those circumstances, responsible public sector managers have no choice but to triage needs and abandon some priorities on the simple, and almost certainly correct, basis that, if they try to do everything, they'll simply fail at everything, so it would be better to do their imperfect best at prioritising, triaging and focusing limited resources where there's still some chance of achieving something substantial.
What gets missed, and it's related to Jeremey's comment above, is that this is a typical pattern in neo-liberal economies (it's even more stark in the US): the corporate sector demands absurd cuts to governent budgets than points out that government programs are no longer effective and should be closed down completely. It's one of the oldest scams in the book and the Business Council of Australia are master practitioners.
Jeremy Tager
Extispicist
National Parks are in trouble - from neglect, indifference, lack of funding, and now increasingly direct attacks on the idea of national parks - NPs don't protect things so much as 'lock things up.' say business and politicians. The pressure for more tourism infrastructure, more 'recreational' uses of parks such as hunting and fishing, pressure to allow logging in NPs based on the myth of controlling fires are now constant. Our failure though is bigger than this. After over 40 years of strong environmentalism…
Read moreGary Goland
Gary Goland is a Friend of The Conversation.
Researcher
Accepting reflections both in the article and comments that our parks and beyond are not well managed, and indeed that their value to our species is an abstract to many.
Having access to and contributing to a species database that permits citizen science, can strenthen our understanding of what we are managing, and what effects introduced changes have. It can be used as a strong reference in discussing management issues in local areas.
Atlas of Living Australia; http://www.ala.org.au/
The Atlas has delivered essential infrastructure and a suite of powerful tools to support research, natural resource management, policy and education.
Jeremy Tager
Extispicist
This has just come through from the Queeensland Government.
"The Newman Government is undertaking wide-ranging consultation with industry groups from across the state, as a review of Queensland's Nature Conservation Act gets underway. National Parks Minister Steve Dickson said discussions were underway with representatives of conservation groups and industry bodies from the tourism and resources sectors. "An initial examination has identified a range of reforms to the Act which would increase access to national parks and other public lands for the enjoyment of all Queenslanders, as well as streamline management by reducing red tape," Mr Dickson said. "An important part of this process is sitting down with the key interest groups to ensure that their issues are appropriately addressed."
Nev Norton
Farmer
Here is a tale I heard another farmer who adjoined a national park relate: This farmer observed a commotion in a tree, near his boundary in a national park, on closer observation he could see a possum being forced out a limb of the tree,by a cat! now wait for it, on the ground below the tree were four other cats intently watching the action in the tree and waiting for the poor possum to have to make its inevitable leap to its doom in the jaws and claws of those four cats.
Read moreSo there is an illustration…
Gary Goland
Gary Goland is a Friend of The Conversation.
Researcher
Neville's comment prompts a response that we need a process audit by the Auditor General's Office, of environmental park management to gather some insight to how well it services the community and political aims. Potentially that will introduce of the strategies Neville talks of, if the findings he suggests, are supported by the audit. We do need parks to work to provide escape for what does happen in other parts of rural Australia.
Neville Mattick
Grazier: Biodiversity is the key.
Valuing nature and recognising good stewardship is a pathway to a healthier environment.
The majority of land in Australia is in private hands and receives little or no recognition where the Environment is 'given a chance to survive' in parallel with Agriculture.
If a dollar is attached to biodiversity (has begun with Biobanking in NSW) then land owners will begin to see the wider picture.
Ultimately it is down to the land owner, serious neglect of Parks and private land has seen feral invasions and particularly weeds assume control.
As for shooters' and pig hunters - worthless, having screened hundreds of them over the decades they rarely act in favour of the owner or the environment and actively promote feral supremacy by taking out alpha males all the time - ban - ban - ban.
Professional culling (by Helicopter) is the Humane and Ethical answer, we have used this to good advantage, despite the cost.
Nev Norton
Farmer
I hear what your saying Neville, I fear that the community at large only values the environment on private lands if they incur no cost.
A prime example would be the Native Veg laws in NSW, where to the best of my understanding a loop hole in the NSW Constitution allowed the then Carr ALP state government, to dodge having to pay affected farmers any compensation, even though their properties were in some cases seriously devalued to the point of being worthless, whilst many other farmers face not being able to improve their freehold land and increase production to keep up with rising costs, these farmers are slowly being strangled into bankruptcy. Over five hundred suicides have been directly attributed to Carr's Legislation.
Now I confess I don't know about Biobanking, but would be surprised if it was worth the red tape and intrusion that would accompany it.
Ian HOLMES
Critic
Re the following quote from David Bowman's article:
'Parks Victoria National Parks logo – “healthy parks healthy people” – says it how it actually is. The reality is that national park management must serve people, and their diverse needs and values, as well as conserving biodiversity'
Maybe we have got it round the wrong way - maybe a better logo would be: "healthy people, healthy parks". And maybe the reality is that national park management must serve the species that inhabit them, and their diverse needs and values, as well as trying to make people feel good by protecting other threatened species.
Caroline Copley
student
I wrote on another site that mentioned the Kakadu issue that perhaps the small mammals built up in response to an unnatural situation and perhaps there is a period of adjustment after removal of grazers, which promote grasses that small mammals hide in. Thus the return of the natural vegetation after removal of cattle in the alpine national park is slow (so everyone jumps up and down) as nature is not a "quick fix" operator, but eventually the sensitive and moist and most probably fire retardant…
Read moreGreg Spiers
Retired Ranger
A couple of comments.
National Parks are only that until someone else wants them. If it transpires that there are significantly high levels of a needed or desired resource (no matter what that might be or how much money it generates in the economy) that may be enclosed within a current National Park or Conservation zone, they will be given the keys and march right in and grab it.
Why not educate the Chinese, and others, into not needing or desireing horns and tusks. Like the Japanese are…
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