It’s not too late to hand back the $2.2 million ET

Let’s be clear. The grant of $2.2 million of funds through the Tasmanian Forest Agreement to Environment Tasmania (ET) is ethically bankrupt and jeopardises the delivery of the conservation outcomes the funding is for.

The money is for two purposes – from the Minister’s press release ( http://environment.gov.au/minister/butler/2013/mr20130724a.html ):

“The first project, worth $1million, will plan, upgrade and establish low-impact, low-maintenance walking tracks through these ancient forests and also contribute towards a short walks and self-drive brochure, website, open days and events.

“It will allow for an audit of all existing walks, access points and self-drive opportunities in and near the more than 500,000 hectares of new reserves created by the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, ensuring accessibility is improved so we can bring visitors into these forests.

“This project will open up the forests to visitors and help generate support in local communities for the new reserves.”

Mr Butler said two other projects, worth a combined $1.2 million, would see the community rehabilitate and revegetate pine plantations and logged areas near or inside the new reserve areas including parts of the expanded Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area such as the tall forests of the iconic Styx Valley.

“The funding will go towards replanting and pest control to create corridors and restore habitat for threatened species, including the Tasmanian devil, wedge-tailed eagle and spotted-tail quoll,” Mr Butler said.”

Let’s talk practical matters first, the delivery of the desired outcomes from the investment. Environment Tasmania has approximately 6 staff at present, and its staffing and structure is oriented around environmental advocacy.

ET has exactly no experience as an organisation in managing forest restoration, track planning and construction, tourism promotion or threatened species management. These are all specialist, coplex areas, requiring skilled and appropriately resourced professionals.

That means that the conservation and other outcomes of this considerable investment of public funds are placed immediately in jeopardy.

Even if all you’re doing is overseeing contracts, the expertise to ensure that what is happening on ground matches your objectives, to manage complex and messy projects in reserves, know how to respond to setbacks, maximize outcomes from resources, is essential.

The most likely and now best case outcome is that ET will subcontract these projects out to other organizations with the actual expertise to implement them. But that means a hit to the project budget as an unnecessary and unskilled ‘middle-man’ organisation ‘manages’ the contracts and creams off administration fees to do so. It also means a duplication of existing public land management expertise in the state government – more on that below.

Next, no-one has seen an estimate for the costs of these activities or how long they are funded for. The Commonwealth has been providing approximately $5-7 million per annum for the management of the entire Tasmanian World Heritage Area (1.4 million hectares), including all the conservation objectives, track maintenance, invasive species management and so on for some time.

It’s unclear how many years the $2.2 million funding for the new WHA reserves of approximately 120,000 ha is meant to last, so we have no transparency on whether this is a ridiculously generous slush fund, or a parlous amount of funding meant to be spread over many years that then won’t allow for vital maintenance and management into the future.

We also don’t know if it will lead to a reduction in the other Commonwealth funding for the 1.4 million hectares of the WHA, or if it will see a further reduction in funding for the 3 Natural Resource Management Regions. Lesson 1 when watching a government do special deals – who are they robbing to pay?

The Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service is responsible for the management of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) and will be responsible for the management of the new extensions.

What is therefore clear is that unless ET contracts Parks and Wildlife to deliver at least the on-ground projects in the $2.2 million, there is a real risk of the new projects not being integrated with current public management of the TWWHA. It means that rather than being the decision-makers, Parks and Wildlife may well be relegated to delivery agents – yet they will be statutorily responsible for these reserves once they are gazetted.

Another question – there’s also a very long-standing management committee for the original TWWHA that Parks & Wildlife oversees – how will it be involved in the decision-making on spending the new funds and managing the new (proposed – they aren’t law yet) reserves?

What is therefore clear from a purely practical viewpoint is that the appointment of ET to manage this significant funding and projects undermines, not strengthens, the management of Tasmania’s world heritage landscapes.

The siphoning of this funding through a completely unqualified organisation then brings us to the issue of ethics and consequences.

It is hard to conceive of a reason for this arrangement other than as a back-door method to give ET public money it’s otherwise not entitled to. If there is, ET needs to come forward publicly and quickly to explain.

As already noted there is after all a qualified, competent, publicly owned entity available, which will have the responsibility of managing these new reserves into the long-term, Parks and Wildlife. In fact Parks and Wildlife would no doubt love this additional public funding, cash-strapped as they are, and given they have long-standing experts and administration, could be expected to maximize the results from this new funding. Yet here they are being denied a much-needed injection of cash and oversight of how it’s spent in reserves they are ultimately responsible for.

So how will ET benefit from handling this money? Assuming normal administration allowance rates for Commonwealth grants, they stand to make at least $200,000 from “managing” these activities, and in fact it could be more than $300,000. The Commonwealth typically accepts administration fees of 8-15% for grants funding contracts, with non-government not for profits getting the more generous percentage.

With this money they will either do one of two things – hire people with the expertise to run the rest of the projects, a shameful and wasteful duplication of existing public services in Parks and Wildlife; or they will simply quietly absorb the funds and direct existing staff to do this work. It also means less campaigning from our fearless ‘peak body’ for environmental advocacy in Tasmania if staff are diverted into managing contracts.

But we can probably expect that anyway. As we’ve seen throughout the TFA, the deeper in ET have gone, the more they have foregone their ability to be able to critique government and industry-led environmental destruction. Now they’ve accepted such a large amount of government funds, for all intents and purposes, no matter what their intention, they are bought in the eye of the informed public.

Sure, the federal ALP did to their credit amend the draconian censorship placed on non-profit advocacy groups who get public funds by Howard. But the truth is, and anyone who’s worked in the NGO sector can tell you, if you’re existing on government dosh, your organizational instinct is to ‘collaborate’ not bite the hand that feeds you.

ET probably doesn’t feel like this, and certainly doesn’t have it as an aim. But organizational culture evolves – or devolves – around people with good intentions if they reach a point where any action they take is assumed to align with their stated principles and goals. It has happened to many good organizations before, and ET display all the same signs.

Whatever the intentions, this is surely the last nail in the coffin of ET’s credibility.

To accept such a large amount of public funds for activities you’re blatantly unqualified to deliver sends one message loud and clear: ET cares about ET’s survival for its own sake, and this goal has subsumed whatever noble intentions it was created for.

But let’s not leave it there. Let’s actually talk about what needs to happen, and can happen. ET needs to ensure that these funds go to Parks and Wildlife as soon as possible, either by telling Minister Butler to ensure his department sends the funding agreement direct to them, or by immediately signing such an agreement with Parks and Wildlife themselves.

If ET’s management won’t do this, its member organisations and staff must start asking questions and challenge this decision. Many people in Tasmania fundamentally disagree with the TFA process and ET’s role, as is their prerogative. What needs to be understood by ET and their supporters is that accepting public funds in this way is crossing the Rubicon; it is not just another small decision on their chosen path.

Organisations make mistakes. It’s what you do when you realise you have made one as bad as this that matters.

Drew has many years experience in environmental management in both public and private sectors, in Tasmania and nationally, and is a keen observer of relevant public policy and advocacy.