Paints a Bleak Picture for Threatened Species and Coastal Environment

www.tas.greens.org.au
The Tasmanian Greens today lamented the appalling environmental record of Labor in Government in Tasmania, with the State of the Environment Report 2009 highlighting the destruction of habitat and species being driven towards extinction at a frightening rate.

Greens Environment and Coastal Protection spokesperson Cassy O’Connor MP said the State of the Environment Report makes it clear Tasmania’s environment and globally unique biodiversity are copping the brunt of government policies that put conservation as the lowest order priority and compromise critical terrestrial and marine habitats.

“The State of the Environment Report 2009 shows that for our native species, on balance, it’s all downhill. It reminds us – to our eternal shame – that since European settlement 50% of the known mammal extinctions worldwide have occurred in Australia,” said Ms O’Connor.

“The report highlights that, “A healthy environment underpins key economic sectors in Tasmania such as tourism, agriculture, horticulture, forestry, aquaculture and wild fisheries. Our environment gives us a competitive advantage in the market place as a producer of clean green, quality products.”

“If only the Bartlett Government was listening to its own scientists instead of thinking it can get away with the business-as-usual degradation of Tasmania’s environment. Clearly, it fails to recognise that this degradation comes at a heavy cost.

The report also highlights:

· climate change has had a measurable impact on Tasmania’s threatened species and ecological communities, such as the Miena cider gum which is in severe decline in its range;

· declining numbers of Wedge-tailed Eagles due to “loss of nesting habitat, nest disturbance from land clearance and other inappropriate land management practices …”;

· 270 vertebrate species and vascular plants are potentially at risk from loss of genetic variation due to habitat change and fragmentation;

· an increase in the number and severity of diseases affecting wildlife, such as the DFTD, platypus Mucormycosis (first detected in 1982) and frog Chytridiomycosis (first detected in 2004);

· a decline in a number of estuarine, coastal and marine species, including the Australian Grayling, with potentially significant future effects flagged for the critically endangered Spotted Handfish due to warming waters;

· the increased vulnerability of the endangered Swift Parrot due to continued dry conditions, and the species’ reliance on wet Eucalypt forest for refuge;

· management and conservation of marine environments to protect their intrinsic and ecosystem values is constrained by significant gaps in understanding, and a lack of focus on the necessary science;

· indications that seagrass beds in the State may have declined by approximately 25% since the 1950s;

· indications that giant kelp has also declined by approximately half along the East Coast since 1944; and,

· the number of introduced weeds and marine and land-based pests and disease in State waters and their affects on estuarine, coastal and marine environments are increasing.

“Our data-driven Premier, and his thoroughly compromised Minister who is responsible for both forestry and threatened species management, should read the State of the Environment Report 2009 to get a bearing on what their own scientists and advisers believe the government is doing to harm the environment, and what it isn’t focussed on protecting and repairing,” Ms O’Connor said.
ANM transition case study 2009.doc
Cassy O’Connor MP Greens’ Environment and Coastal Protection Spokesperson