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The Commonwealth's Environmental Expenditure

Appendix 2 - Biodiversity

Table A2.1: Biodiversity - Programme and Tax Expenditure Estimates

This table lists activities in the order that they appear in the following text. `na' denotes that spending cannot be precisely identified and it does not mean that spending is not occurring.

Description	1999-00 $m	2000-01 $m	2001-02 $m	2002-03 $m	2003-04 $m
PROGRAMME AND TAX EXPENDITURE ESTIMATES
Biodiversity Conservation
Biodiversity Convention and Strategy	1.8	1.9	1.9	1.9	-
Access to Biological Resources	-	-	-	-	-
Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety	-	-	-	-	-
Off-Reserve Conservation
Bushcare(a)	100.2	91.3	84.5	-	-
Philanthropy	na	na	na	na	na
Reserves and Protected Areas
National Reserves System	29.7	20.5	19.7	-	-
Commonwealth Protected Areas	58.2	59.5	59.9	60.7	60.7
Other Commonwealth Land	na	na	na	na	na
Feral Animals and Weeds
Plant Pest Eradication	na	0.9	na	na	na
Tri-State Fruit Fly Strategy	na	na	na	na	na
Environmental Impact of Locust Control(b)	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1
National Feral Animal Control(c)	5.0	2.3	2.8	-	-
Animal and Plant Quarantine Policy	6.1	5.7	5.7	1.7	1.7
Wildlife Conservation
Wildlife Management	na	na	na	na	na
Wildlife Resource Conservation	2.3	2.5	2.4	2.4	2.4
Threatened Species
Endangered Species	8.5	9.5	5.5	-	-
Biodiversity Information Base
Australian Biological Resources Study	5.4	3.4	3.5	3.5	3.5
CSIRO (total)	na	20.3	20.4	20.5	na
Biodiversity knowledge and informatics	na	5.7	5.8	5.9	na
Ecosystem sustainability at farm to catchment scale	na	2.3	2.3	2.3	na
Ecological sustainability at regional to national scales	na	1.8	1.8	1.8	na
Conservation and use of biodiversity	na	4.1	4.2	4.2	na
Management of environmental pests, weeds and diseases	na	4.5	4.5	4.7	na
Sustainable tourism	na	0.9	0.9	0.9	na
Ecological risk assessment of GMOs	na	1.0	0.9	0.8	na
Nature Based Tourism
National Action Plan for Tourism	na	na	na	na	na
Australian Tourism Commission Environment Strategy	na	na	na	na	na

- denotes nil; na denotes not available

(a) Includes funding for Cape York Peninsula.

(b) The Commonwealth and states jointly fund this programme.

(c) Jointly administered by Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry-Australia, and Environment Australia.

Biodiversity Conservation

Biodiversity Convention and Strategy
$1.9 million in 2000-01

Under the Convention on Biological Diversity, activities in 2000-01 will concentrate on reviewing progress and setting new targets for the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity. The strategy deals at a global level with the full range of biological diversity conservation, its sustainable use, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from this use. The strategy covers all of Australia's biological diversity, and focusses on the conservation of Australia's indigenous biological diversity. The strategy aims to have all sectors of the community sharing the costs and benefits of conserving biological diversity, including the costs of conservation, and the economic benefits from conserving biological diversity.

Website: chm.environment.gov.au
Contact: Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group - 02 6274 2562

Access to Biological Resources

On 22 December 1999 the Minister for the Environment and Heritage announced an Inquiry into Access into Biological Resources in Commonwealth Areas. The inquiry is considering the ownership of plant and animal resources, the conditions under which access should be given, and how to ensure that biodiversity is protected. A particular focus is how to equitably share the benefits that come from indigenous knowledge and practices. The inquiry will prepare recommendations for a scheme to control access in Commonwealth areas, with a report due by 30 June 2000. This scheme will be established under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and will help deliver on Australia's responsibilities under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Contact: Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group - 02 6274 2528

Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety

The Government is analysing the implications for Australia of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, negotiated under the Convention on Biological Diversity in January 2000. The Protocol establishes an international regime to cover the environmental impact of trade in living (genetically) modified organisms. It will enter into force when 50 countries have ratified.

Website: www.dfat.gov.au/environment
Contact: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Environment Branch - 02 6261 2705

Off-Reserve Conservation

Bushcare
$91.3 million in 2000-01

Bushcare is the largest of the Natural Heritage Trust programmes. It has a nationwide objective to reverse the decline in the quality and extent of native vegetation cover. The programme funds projects by landholders, communities and government agencies to protect native vegetation, to replant degraded land and to support the sustainable management of natural resources.

Website: www.nht.gov.au/programs/bushcare.html
Contact: Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group - 1800 671 717

Cape York Peninsula

The Cape York Plan was developed by the Commonwealth in consultation with the Queensland Government. It is being delivered by both governments in partnership with industry, indigenous communities and conservation organisations. The objectives are to protect the outstanding environment, heritage and cultural values of the Cape. This is being achieved through voluntary property management planning, expanding the network of protected areas, providing community grants and funding projects to ensure the protection of the natural and cultural values of the region.

Contact: Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group - 1800 671 717

Philanthropy

The Government continues to encourage involvement by private individuals and organisations in managing and conserving the environment. Recent changes to taxation laws encourage donations of land for environmental purposes. These changes allow an income tax deduction of gifts of property worth more than $5,000. This deduction can be apportioned over five years. Bequests of property are exempt from capital gains tax.

Contact: Environment Australia, Portfolio Strategies Group - 02 6274 1968

Reserves and Protected Areas

National Reserve System
$20.5 million in 2000-01

The Commonwealth is working with all levels of government, industry and the community to develop further a comprehensive, adequate and representative National Reserve System. This includes establishing and managing new ecologically significant protected areas, providing incentives to landholders to incorporate private land in the National Reserve System, and developing and implementing best practice standards for protected area management.

Indigenous Protected Areas

The Indigenous Protected Areas (IPA) component of the National Reserve System aims to establish and manage protected areas on indigenous owned estates and to establish cooperative management arrangements for government owned protected areas between indigenous groups and the relevant government nature conservation agency.

IPA projects on indigenous lands are developing plans of management for the conservation of natural and cultural features utilising both traditional and modern scientific approaches to land management. To date six IPA projects have progressed to the stage of formally declaring land as Indigenous Protected Areas. These are Nantawarrina and Yalata in South Australia; Oyster Cove, Risdon Cove and Preminghana in Tasmania; and Deen Maar in Victoria. These IPAs have added some 515,000 hectares of land to Australia's protected area system that is managed according to identified IUCN management principles.

The Deen Maar Indigenous Protected Area provides an example of the activities undertaken by indigenous landholders with government support through the IPA programme. The 453 hectare property, 50 kilometres west of Warrnambool in Victoria, is managed by the Framlingham Aboriginal Trust. Work on the property is focussed on rehabilitating the degraded wetland and coastal dune system. Significant effort has also gone into reducing the rabbit population, controlling weeds, revegetation and track maintenance. There has recently been the re-discovery of up to 20 orange bellied parrots (which comprise about 15 per cent of the total population of these critically endangered parrots known to exist) in the Deen Maar IPA. Since the Framlingham Aboriginal Trust have taken over the management of the property they have altered the water flows of the wetland area which has retained water in the wetlands for longer periods.

Website: www.environment.gov.au/bg/nrs/nrsindex.htm
Contacts: Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group (reserves) - 02 6274 2706
Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group (indigenous) - 02 6274 2327

Commonwealth Protected Areas
$59.5 million in 2000-01

The Commonwealth manages 18 protected areas in the Northern Territory, the External Territories and Australian waters. Three of the six national parks managed by the Commonwealth (Kakadu and Uluru-Kata Tjuta national parks in the Northern Territory and Booderee National Park in the Jervis Bay Territory) are jointly managed with Aboriginal traditional owners. Kakadu and Uluru-Kata Tjuta are included on the World Heritage list.

Website: www.biodiversity.environment.gov.au/protecte/intro.htm
Contacts: Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group (terrestrial) - 02 6274 2221
Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group (marine) - 02 6274 1919

Other Commonwealth Land

Biodiversity is protected on other Commonwealth land such as Department of Defence land and leased federal airports. The Commonwealth has also made a substantial commitment to marine biodiversity in Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone (see Appendix 7 - Oceans).

Feral Animals and Weeds

National Weeds Programme

See Appendix 3 - Land Resources and Forests.

Plant Pest Eradication
$0.9 million in 2000-01

The Plant Pest Eradication Programme aims to maintain international market access through the prevention and eradication of exotic plant pests, weeds and diseases.

Website: www.ansto.gov.au/ansto/capability/cs10.html
Contact: Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry-Australia, Plant Pest Eradication Programmes - 02 6272 5399

Tri-State Fruit Fly Strategy

As part of the Tri-State Fruit Fly Strategy the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation irradiates between six and fifteen million insect pupae each week to produce sterile fruit flies. The insect irradiation service reduces the pressure of fruit flies and acts as a barrier to the further spread of the flies. The sterile male flies out-compete the fertile males to reduce the number of fertilised eggs in nature. This is a project run by three states. NSW Agriculture has the leading role.

Website: www.ansto.gov.au/ansto/capability/facilitiesp.html
Contact: Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Physics Division - 02 9717 3052

Environmental Impact of Locust Control
$0.1 million in 2000-01

The Australian Plague Locust Commission undertakes research to assess the impact on non-target fauna of the aerial application of insecticides for locust control. If necessary the standard operating procedures would be modified in light of this research to ensure the impacts on other fauna are minimised.

Contact: Australian Plague Locust Commission - 02 6272 5727

National Feral Animal Control
$2.3 million in 2000-01

The National Feral Animal Control Programme, funded through the Natural Heritage Trust, aims to reduce damage by pest animals to agriculture and the environment. The agricultural component of the programme provides support for projects that develop more cost-effective, humane pest animal management techniques and strategies. It also supports extension activities that promote better practices.

Under the environmental component of the programme the focus of funding is upon actions identified in the threat abatement plans for foxes, feral cats, feral goats and rabbits to promote recovery and protection of nationally listed endangered and vulnerable species.

Websites: www.brs.gov.au
www.nht.gov.au
Publication: Olsen P, 1998. Australia's Pest Animals: New Solutions to Old Problems. Bureau of Resource Sciences/Kangaroo Press
Contacts: Bureau of Rural Sciences, Agricultural Pests Unit - 02 6272 3801
Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group - 02 6274 2388

Animal and Plant Quarantine Policy
$5.7 million in 2000-01

The health of Australia's animal, plant and human populations is maintained by a range of quarantine programmes that include protection of the environment. The quarantine activities also underpin vital access to overseas markets for Australia's export industries, by enabling compliance with the international regulatory framework that governs trade between nations.

Website: www.aqis.gov.au
Contact: Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service - 1800 020 504

Wildlife Conservation

Wildlife Management

The `incidental catch (or by-catch) of seabirds during oceanic long-line fishing operations' was listed in July 1995 as a key threatening process under the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992. This listing led to the preparation of a threat abatement plan (TAP). The ultimate aim of the threat abatement process is to achieve a zero by-catch of seabirds, especially threatened albatross and petrel species, in long-line fisheries. Key elements of the TAP to be implemented in 2000-01 are: prescribing in regulations the appropriate modifications to fishing practices or equipment (mitigation measures) to reduce seabird by-catch to below 0.05 seabirds per thousand hooks; providing for development of new mitigation measures; and collecting the information necessary to improve knowledge of seabird long-line by-catch through the implementation of a `pilot observer programme'.

In a complementary activity, the Commonwealth Government is also leading an international initiative aimed at providing better protection for albatrosses in the southern hemisphere. Australia is consulting with other range states of southern hemisphere albatrosses on the development of an agreement that would see countries taking cooperative actions to improve albatross conservation.

Contact: Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group - 02 6274 2337

Wildlife Resource Conservation
$2.5 million in 2000-01

Trade in native species and products derived from them is regulated under the Commonwealth Wildlife Protection (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act 1982 which also gives effect to Australia's obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. A new database system will be implemented to provide for the electronic issue of permits, growth in the number of recorded trade activities and more effective enforcement activities.

Website: www.biodiversity.environment.gov.au/plants/wildlife/intro.htm
Publication: Buying Wildlife Products - Tips for Travellers
Contact: Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group - 02 6274 2270

Threatened Species and Ecological Communities

Endangered Species
$9.5 million in 2000-01

The Endangered Species Programme provides a core resource for the conservation of nationally threatened species and ecological communities, primarily through funding on-ground community action to protect habitat and abate threats, and the preparation and implementation of recovery and threat abatement plans. A primary focus for 2000-01 is ensuring that Environment Australia can quickly and effectively respond to the requirements of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The new Threatened Species Scientific Committee has been established to advise the Government on the administration of the programme.

Website: www.biodiversity.environment.gov.au/plants/threaten/
Contact: Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group - 02 6274 2744

Biodiversity Information Base

Australian Biological Resources Study
$3.4 million in 2000-01

The Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS) supports the description and documentation of Australia's plants and animals by funding taxonomic research and the dissemination of taxonomic information to underpin Australia's biodiversity conservation and landcare efforts. In 2000-01 ABRS will continue to provide advice and support for the Global Taxonomy Initiative of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and to assist with the development of the proposed Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and the local counterpart, the Australian Biodiversity Information Facility. ABRS will also develop a range of tools for improving the dissemination, accessibility and useability of this cornerstone species information to meet the needs of local communities through to high-level decision makers.

Website: www.anbg.gov.au/abrs
Contact: Environment Australia, Biodiversity Group - 02 6250 9430

CSIRO Research
$20.3 million in 2000-01

CSIRO undertakes a range of research to provide understanding and tools for sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity. This work focusses on a system-wide understanding of the functions and values of biodiversity, and covers local to global scale issues. Key elements of the work include research on biodiversity knowledge and informatics; ecosystem sustainability at farm to catchment scale; ecological sustainability at regional to national scales; conservation and use of biodiversity; management of environmental pests, weeds and diseases; sustainable tourism; and ecological risk assessment of genetically modified organisms.

Website: www.csiro.au and follow links to biodiversity sector
Contact: CSIRO Biodiversity Sector - 02 6242 1667

Australian Institute of Marine Science

Nature Based Tourism

National Action Plan for Tourism

The Department of Industry, Science and Resources developed, in conjunction with stakeholders from the tourism industry, state governments and non-government organisations, a National Action Plan for Tourism, which was launched in 1998. The implementation of this plan continues to contribute to ecologically sustainable tourism development, recognising that environmental, community and cultural issues are an integral part of economic decisions.

Contact: Department of Industry, Science and Resources - 02 6213 7088

Australian Tourism Commission Environment Strategy

The Australian Tourism Commission Environment Strategy objectives include monitoring, reporting on and reducing the impact of international tourism on Australia's natural environment. Activities promoted by the strategy include market research and communicating environmental messages through tourism information material.

Contact: Australian Tourism Commission - 02 9361 1305