From: Louise Dever [ljdever@bigpond.com]
Sent: Thursday, 25 September 2003 8:01 AM
To: ECITA, Committee (SEN)
Subject: <no subject>
THE EUROBODALLA GREENS


A Stitch In Time.....








SUBMISSION TO

INQUIRY INTO THE REGULATION, CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT OF INVASIVE SPECIES AND THE ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AMENDMENT (INVASIVE SPECIES) BILL 2002


Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee


24th September 2003







Prepared by William A. Douglas
on behalf of the Eurobodalla Greens
All correspondence to:
PO Box 123
Moruya 2537
phone:02 4474.5765
email: willdouglas@bigpond.com











Disclaimer: Whilst the present submission reflects current policy of the NSW Greens and Australian Greens it does not constitute it.  This document is the sole work of the Eurobodalla Greens, an affiliated member group of the NSW Greens, and should not be taken to represent the views of any person or group other than the Eurobodalla Greens and its financial members.

The Eurobodalla Greens welcomes the opportunity to submit its ideas on invasive species to the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committees Invasive Species Inquiry (the Inquiry).

In general terms we believe, given the known and expected impacts of invasive  animal and planet species on native flora and fauna, agriculture and animal husbandry and production, that the efforts of Australian agencies and the governments that have directed them have been piecemeal, under resourced, organisationally isolated and politically half-hearted.  We applaud the Inquiry and wish it success in generating appropriate goals and strategies allowing for a unified response to the threats of invasive species underpinned by an effective and powerful legislative base.

We believe that any response to these threats must, to be operationally and cost effective, have the following attributes:

1.Bipartisan support, across all political groupings and self interest and with the goodwill of all political parties and independents will be required, irrespective of the origins of the ideas and solutions or the electorates that may benefit the most in the short term. In the long term, all of Australia will benefit from the control or elimination of invasive species.

2. Any responses must be timely and prompt, in that the longer a strong response to invasive species problems is left, the harder and more costly the problems will be to solve.  So many of the pests covered by the Inquiry appear to expand effortlessly in a vacuum of limited or non-existent predators or other limiting agents in the Australian landscape.  For example, the relatively easy eradication of the Asian buffalo from the wetlands of northern Australia would have prevented the current widespread and at present apparently uncontrollable infestation of Mimosa pigra across the Top End.  In small patches, surrounded by undisturbed native wetland vegetation, M. pigra would be comparatively easily controlled.  Not now, however.  

Similarly, lack of concerted action to control the relatively limited release of cane toads into Queensland sugar cane producing areas in the 1930s after the problems became obvious in the 40s, means that the pest has now spread from northern NSW to the top of Queensland and has, in the last two years, made it into Kakadu National Park.  The problem is now huge, and may be insurmountable.  A prompt and timely response by a committed government and well resourced agency in the 40s and 50s would have limited if not eradicated this pest.  Any effort now to do so will be hugely expensive and laborious.  A stitch in time......!

3. Efforts must be coordinated, for otherwise excellent but isolated efforts at control of invasive pests in small areas have always been compromised by the lack of interest or expertise, lack of funding or the sheer indifference of neighbouring outbreak areas.  This is particularly so where mobile animal pests such as pigs, foxes and rabbits and plants with mobile seed cross artificial boundaries like State borders, or Shire boundaries.

The Eurobodalla Greens supports the establishment of an Invasive Species Advisory Committee (the Committee) as proposed in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Invasive Species) Bill 2002 (the Bill) and believes that, with some changes, it can potentially go some way to coordinating control efforts and research initiatives, providing a central point of reference by agencies, a repository of data and modeling and so on, should it be suitably constituted and empowered.  

To this end, the Committee should be required by additions to the Bill to convene national biennial interagency conferences on invasive species, rotating between the States and Territories, with proceedings published and placed on the public record.  Under these provisions research institutions, government and non-government agencies, agriculture, industry and trade representatives and members of the environment and landcare  movements can come together and their efforts much better coordinated than if all parties worked in isolation.  Such sharing of research data and policy development will also encourage transparency, peer review, scientific rigour and will support the publics right to know how its funds are being utilised.  Interagency cooperation will be fostered.  The wheel will not necessarily need to be reinvented.  Finally, party political and financially vested interests will be subject to scrutiny and will therefore be encouraged to act with suitable propriety.

4.  Adequate resourcing is essential if the tardiness of previous governments and control agencies is to be overcome.  

The choices are clear to the current government and governments in the immediate future.  Either:

a. the sums of money and research and control efforts required will be enormous if the problems of invasive pests are to be satisfactorily addressed, and in the short term, to protect endangered species, the purchase and pest proof fencing of known habitats (the Walmsley model as exemplified by Warrawong Sanctuary and elsewhere) might need necessarily to be undertaken with government funds ; or

b. even greater amounts of taxpayers funds will need to be spent and efforts expended in future if no or inadequate resourcing is expended on the problem as it exists now - given the success of invasive species in colonising Australia and the potential economic losses that will result if they expand to their biological limits, it is likely that sums required to solve the problem will be exponentially greater than they now are; or

c. Australia can continue on its broadly non-interventionist, shell be right approach and lose the battle.  It learns to live , however awfully and diminished, with the abundant feral pests and invasive weeds and their greatly increased populations in future, the concomitant impacts to native fauna and flora, natural landscapes, waterways and water supplies and foregoes the earnings of agriculture, industry, trade and environmentally based tourism lost or impacted by the effects of invasive species.  Under this scenario, the costs of and outbreak say of rabies, spread by abundant and widespread populations of foxes and cats will need to be borne by future generations.  The loss of viable grazing and broadacre agricultural land to weeds such as serrated tussock is guaranteed if nothing is done now, yet it is not the current generation that will feel the effects.

The Eurobodalla Greens submit that only a. above, huge but necessary expenditure made now, is viable.  The other options place unacceptable burdens on future generations and will ensure that the problem of invasive species becomes insurmountable.

5. The efforts must be inclusive of all species that are currently or potentially invasive.  Whilst the Bill contains provisions for future consideration for inclusion of other species on the list by the Minister, the reluctance of a Minister for political rather than scientific reasons to do so, or the influence of commercial interests, or the tight but unconscious grip of Treasury might all see off the inclusion of a species for research and control that in future might become the new rabbit or cane toad or blackberry.

The Eurobodalla Greens submit that the decision to exclude a species from inclusion in the list must be removed from the Minister.  This prerogative must given to the Advisory Committee (by consensus or two thirds majority) with the Minister mandated to abide by this recommendation.

Strong cases can be made for inclusion of a number of species on the list for their local or regional effects, before they become national problems, such as bitou bush Chrysanthemoides monilifera ssp rotundata,  English broom Cytisus scoparius or small and large leafed privet Ligustrum sinense and L. lucidum, respectively.

The latter are a case in point for the Eurobodalla coast and waterways, where they impact on waterways in similar ways to willows Salix spp (invasion of native vegetation, loss of biodiversity, in filling of streams etc).  Privets in the water catchment for the town of Moruya are currently being addressed with physical control attempted at considerable cost by Greencorps workers.  Yet Eurobodalla Shire Council refuses to consider inclusion of the privets on their noxious species list because they are currently unable to adequately control those species already listed.  Inclusion on a national register would remove any prerogative for Councils or other authorities to ignore problem species in their jurisdiction.  Furthermore, by the declaration of such species as the privets, the government would be enlisting the support of the entire population of Australia, in that individuals would be required to control the species on their lands or in their possession.  Privet was once an ornamental plant and hedge, and many people in Moruya still have them in their gardens, unaware of the problems they cause.  In the absence of listing, all field work to control the pest will be severely compromised by suburban gardens providing an abundant bird dispersed seed source.


Conclusions:

The Eurobodalla Greens believe that the Invasive Species Bill and the Advisory Committee that is thereby constituted once the Bill is enacted should be structured so that any response to a threat from an invasive species will be bipartisan, timely and prompt, coordinated, well resourced and inclusive of all potentially invasive species, not just those presently listed.

We are particularly concerned that the Minister alone be empowered under the Bill, for the reasons stated in 5. above.  We recommend that a duly scientifically based Advisory Committee should advise the Minister and that the Minister be mandated to follow its recommendations.

To this end we are concerned that the establishment and composition of the Committee not be at the whim of the Minister or his department but be spelled out in the Bill.  We submit that a set number of positions be established on the Committee with representation from the States and Territories and across control, research and management agencies, government and non-government advisers, trade and industry representatives and agriculturalists.  At least two thirds of the number of positions on the Committee should be suitably academically qualified in natural and agricultural resource management disciplines, ecology, entomology, genetics or botany etc.  This will ensure that business and bureaucracy do not swamp the efforts and confound the recommendations of scientists on the Committee.

Finally, the Eurobodalla Greens believe that decisions of the Committee, actioned by the Minister, should at all times be underpinned by the principle of Environmentally Sustainable Development, and that these principles be stated and constructed as guiding and determining principles in the Bill.  The principle of intergenerational equity has already been discussed here.  The precautionary principle is equally important in the the development and actions of strategies to control invasive species in the Australian landscape and to ensure that control efforts, in a sentiment borrowed from the Hippocratic Oath of doctors, First do no harm!

The Eurobodalla Greens commend the Bill and submit that it be amended and strengthened as discussed above.