ABSTRACT
In Australia, native vegetation clearance is a major cause of both biodiversity loss and land degradation. Between 1991 and 1995, an average of 343,500 ha of native vegetation were cleared each year. Recent studies show that this rate increased between 1995 and 1997, due to excessive clearing in the state of Queensland. These findings coincide with several new national responses, namely the enactment of the new Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999 (EPBCA), moves to develop a cooperative national framework for the management and monitoring of Australia’s native vegetation, and implementation of the Natural Heritage Trust Bushcare Program. These tools will need to be strongly applied if governments are to meet those targets set out in the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia’s Biological Diversity that relate to land clearing and conserving remnant native vegetation. A range of opportunities for the Commonwealth Government to strengthen native vegetation conservation efforts through the EPBCA are identified and discussed. These opportunities arise from: protection of listed ecological communities; listing native vegetation loss as a matter of National Environmental Significance; bilateral management arrangements with States and Territory governments; listing native vegetation loss as a key threatening process (KTP); and addressing land use and land use change as a response to climate change. Applying the EPBCA in these ways can provide the Commonwealth with an effective legislative tool to implement the National Biodiversity Strategy to conserve and protect Australia’s native vegetation.
