The development of criteria for the establishment of protected areas in Australia has remained unsophisticated and focused on forest ecosystems. There is a pressing need to prepare a national set of criteria for the establishment of a comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) reserve system that takes into the account the full diversity of Australia’s natural systems and its threats.

Public reserve development in most states appears to be driven by the crude target of protecting 15% of each bioregion. This is largely because of the limited extent of the reserve system in most bioregions in Australia and the size of the task at hand. Until recently, areas are added on an opportunistic basis, where lands are already in public ownership, or competing land uses are minimal.

More recent reservations of forested ecosystems have been driven by regional forest assessment processes initiated under the National Forest Policy Statement, guided by the ‘JANIS’ criteria. Land purchases in woodland, grassland and arid ecosystems are increasingly driven by the scientific application of the CAR reserve principles. Yet, because of the poor reservation of these areas, the initial foundations of a CAR protected areas systems are only being created, and thus almost any land would improve the CAR values.

JANIS was derived from scientific principles, but ultimately to gain acceptance by all State and Territory governments, required modest goals and a practical and flexible implementation. Its biodiversity targets reflect international thinking of the mid 1990s, drawing on the Commission for Protected Areas’ target of "a minimum 10% of each biome" and the Commonwealth’s proposed forest reserve criteria (Commonwealth 1995) of "15% of the pre-1750 distribution of each forest type."

The JANIS criteria settles on 15% of pre-European distribution as a ‘desirable objective', but precedes the discussion by qualifying that the "priority for reservation of a forest ecosystem is related to how much remains relative to its initial distribution and its vulnerability to threatening processes." This is further refined and operationalised for different forest ecosystems, biodiversity features, old-growth and wilderness.

Compared to forested ecosystems, other ecosystems have widely different threat sources and proportion and nature of remaining extent. The ‘wheatbelt’ temperate woodlands of Western Australia and eastern Australia have little uncleared native vegetation, and what remains is fragmented and in poor condition. All areas of remaining native vegetation are critical to prevent further regional extinctions and major revegetation is needed to restore ecosystems.

By contrast, the northern parts of tropical woodlands and the semi arid areas have been little cleared but grazed at a range of intensities, largely depending on available water sources. Already schemes as diverse as cotton watered by groundwater and teak and sandalwood plantations are proposed in these areas, and while this may initially reduce the extent of land cover by a small proportion, intact ecosystems and the natural abundance, now rare in the world, would be lost. Clearly a very high retention threshold is needed.

In each of these contexts, the role of a protected area system is different. In the longer term, achievement of a CAR reserve system is highly dependent on government partnerships with rural landholders or indigenous people, compared to the traditional establishment of protected areas from existing public lands, and this may determine the pace and nature of reserve establishment.

Already there are many other criteria in use across Australia. Birds Australia in its Birds on Farm publication (supplement to Wingspan 2000) recommend that at least 30% of a farm be devoted to protecting native vegetation.

McIntyre, McIvor and MacLeod (2000) used scientific experts to derive guidelines for sustainable management of sub-tropical grassy woodlands for livestock production. They recommended that for these ecosystems, at least 30% woodland cover should be retained, 10% of the property managed for wildlife, and at least 70% of the total property managed to support native grassland plants and animals dependent on a native understorey (while permitting some production grazing).

These are just two examples of the many types of criteria for conservation or reservation currently being developed either in isolation or for the many regional and state natural resource processes being conducted across Australia. This may include vegetation or catchment management planning processes, incentives schemes and ‘trade-off’ schemes. Each set of criteria will reflect the area’s social and environmental contexts.

The recently released Nature Conservation Review Victoria 2001 (Traill and Porter) provides a good review of the development of protected area targets and proposes a workable system for Victoria. It begins by stating that reserve criteria "generally reflect what different societies want to protect." It proposes that "the only complete protection of all remaining native habitat and major restoration works can definitely ensure no further local, regional or statewide extinctions occur in Victoria." But adds that society is unlikely to find this acceptable!

There is a clear need to develop criteria that extend many of the ideas in the JANIS report, latest scientific thinking, and what society finds acceptable to the development of a protected areas system across all Australian situations.

Such national protected area criteria would need to develop through a credible and transparent process involving governments, scientists, environmentalists and others. It needs to be adaptable, yet strong, and drive long-term action on public reserve establishment and private land conservation.

Given the poor state of the CAR reserve system measured against even the crude forest-based criteria, there is a long way to travel to secure today’s biodiversity — the key measure of ecological sustainability. The work ahead in protected area establishment requires significant funding to purchase and manage land.

The National Reserve System, established by the Commonwealth Government in 1996 with $80M until June 2002 has successfully contributed to a 3.6M ha expansion of the reserve system in Australia. This work needs to continue, and the National Parks Australia Council is working to see an NRS Mark II established that escalates reserve establishment in priority areas.

Andrew Cox is the President of NPAC and Executive Officer, NPA NSW