Cover Story

The finding that so many of our Australian bird species are under threat, is a clear indication that Australia is dramatically losing biodiversity. Focusing on landbirds, the generally accepted primary cause for their decline is a loss of habitat, resultant from land clearing and its associated problems such as salinity.

Let's look more closely at land clearing. New data released in November, 2001 (5), based on research undertaken by the Queensland Herbarium, the NSW Royal Botanic Gardens and the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, revised the land clearing rate up by 22% from previous estimations — 60,000 hectares/year being cleared in NSW alone, between 1997 and 2001. Today in NSW, there are less than 1% of intact native grasslands remaining (6) (i.e. carrying a full complement of native plant species); over 90% of pre-European woodland cover has been removed from some districts, (e.g. intact grassy white box woodlands have been reduced to less than 0.01% of their original several million hectares (7)); and wetlands, the engine houses of biological diversity in our often dry landscape, are in many cases dying of thirst due to interference with the natural flow patterns of our rivers, mainly due to irrigation demands (8). Forests of all types are still reasonably well represented and well reserved, in comparison to native grasslands and woodlands which are our most threatened habitats.

Why are we continuing to clear so much land, when the obvious indications are that Australia is rapidly losing biodiversity?

In October, 2001, Birds Australia together with the Bird Interest Group Network (BIGnet) held a seminar entitled 'Birds for the Future'. This included an Open Forum whose primary aim was to assess why we are failing to achieve effective conservation of our native habitats and how best to address this. Interestingly, the causes were much broader and lower level than had been expected, but that in itself is important. Perhaps our message has not been getting across effectively because our level of approach has been too high?

Attitude: 87% of problems identified could be attributed to uninformed or unilateral attitudes. These ranged from a lack of financial value placed on conserved land – particularly by financial institutions and government bodies, to mistrust between stakeholders, e.g. farmers and conservationists.

Resources: A lack of resources contributed to 56% of problems, particularly those linked in the Economic, Prioritisation and Behavioural groups. These included a lack of financial investment in conservation and a consequent lack of human resources - including active membership of conservation groups.

Processes: The methods used to undertake various activities, (i.e. processes), were identified as a primary cause in 44% of problems, e.g. some farming, tourism and urban development practices.

Research: 12.5% of problems could be attributed to a total absence of or insufficient knowledge to:

¨ ensure biological diversity is maintained on private/community land other than in specificallyprotected areas like National Parks.

¨ ensure that the management of National Reserves/Parks, which would act as store houses for the future, resulted in the maintenance of comprehensive biodiversity.

The most significant of these problems is 'attitude'. This pervades almost all issues, and this is what we must change. "No easy task" I hear you say, but as Dr Dean Graetz reminded us in his motivational presentation at the 'Birds for the Future' Symposium (9), the Civil Rights Movement in the USA transformed a whole society in just a very few years through strong leadership, persistence, commitment, activating the moral strength of the individual and turning it into political action and staying focused on 'the prize'. In our case – 'the prize' is a future for Australian native habitats and wildlife.

There are many ways in which we can individually
contribute to changing attitudes and 'make conservation happen'. It seems to me that we have a moral obligation to do so. If we don’t then we will loose 20% of our landbird species and 63% of our breeding seabirds – in the not so distant years ahead.

1 Garnett, S. and Crowley, G. 2000. Action Plan for Australian Birds. Birds Australia/Environment Australia, Canberra.

2 G. Barry Baker, Rosemary Gales, Sheryl Hamilton and Victoria Wilkinson. Albatrosses and Petrels in Australia: A Review of their conservation and Management. 2001 (in press).

3 Fendley, M. and Barrett, G. Birds as Headline Indicators Draft submission. Birds Australia, Melbourne.

4 Bernun, L. 1999. Are Important Bird Areas Reflective of Biodiversity? Address to BirdLife International World Conference, Malaysia, October

5 New Data reveal Australian Landclearing rates 22% worse. November, 2001. Report Queensland Conservation Council, Australian Conservation Foundation, The Wilderness Society.

6 Dr David Baker-Gabb: Grasslands – Conservation status in NSW. Address to Birds for the Future symposium. October, 2001.

7 Dr Andrew Fisher: Woodland birds in NSW: horror, hallucination or hope. Address to Birds for the Future symposium. October, 2001.

8 Dr Stuart Blanch: Wetlands - Conservation status in NSW. Address to Birds for the Future symposium. October, 2001.

9 Dr Dean Greatz: Conserving Australian Birds: Keep your eyes on the Prize! Address to Birds for the Future symposium. October, 2001.

Kate Ravich is the Chair of the Southern NSW and ACT Group of Birds Australia
and the Coordinator of the Birds in Backyards Program.

Decline of woodlands birds a legacy of the past...

by Judie Peet

Whilst current land clearing is the major threat to birds’ woodland habitats, land use practices of up to 50 years ago in the NSW sheep/wheat belt are now being felt. Bird species are still disappearing today from areas which have seen no apparent habitat change for decades.

Land managers must realise that today’s decision may not reveal an obvious impact until many years down the track. The results of clearing cannot be reversed in the short term by revegetation as revegetation only replaces one element in the landscape. The restoration of ecological processes is a natural event that happens gradually over a long period of time, so protection of existing native vegetation is much more important than attempts at rehabilitation.

This is not to deny the huge value of revegetation in already degraded areas – rather, it is to reinforce the need to retain remaining native vegetation communities across the landscape. Threats from increased numbers of foxes to ground-dwelling birds such as the Malleefowl continue in the woodlands area. However, the Goonoo State Forest’s fox control program appears to be achieving success in reducing the number of foxes as the number of reported Malleefowl sightings is growing.

In another region of the west, the Hay Plains, I understand that foxes are also causing major concern for the Plains Wanderers. Unfortunately these small ground-dwelling birds ‘freeze’ on sight of foxes with inevitable results.

Judie Peet is the Coordinator of the inaugural Birds Australia/NPWS project to address the decline of woodlands birds. She is based in Dubbo and may be contacted by email: miworld@iprimus.com.au

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