Freshwater ecosystems

5.3 Commonwealth environmental assessment

Commonwealth procedures relating to EIA apply only to matters of Commonwealth jurisdiction - relatively minor matters in the overall national water management framework. The InterGovernmental Agreement on the Environment provides a foundation for joint Commonwealth / State assessment procedures where applicable. Refer also to the discussion of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 below.
Through initiatives of the Land and Water Resources Audit, and the Land and Water Research and Development Corporation, guidelines on EIA procedures as they apply to large water infrastructure proposals have been developed.
The COAG Water Reform Agenda 1994 places a high priority on both sustainable use (and by implication the protection of biodiversity) and environmental flows. However, the need for representative freshwater reserves has not been identified in the agenda agreement or its related programs, in spite of the importance of this program to biodiversity protection, and thus to sustainability. This has occurred, as discussed, largely as a result of gaps in the multilateral agreements which underpin the COAG agenda.
The assessment of cumulative impacts needs additional support and encouragement through Commonwealth programs, and it is to be hoped that new initiatives currently being undertaken by AFFA (see below) will provide, in part, a vehicle for such action.

5.4 Commonwealth reserve programs

5.4.1 The National Reserve System Program (NRSP)

The NRSP is one of the key mechanisms by which the Commonwealth seeks to meet its commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity. It was originally established as a cooperative program with the States and Territories, but is now funded under the Natural Heritage Trust. The goal of the NRSP is “to establish a comprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) system of protected areas to conserve Australia’s native biodiversity”⁷⁹. The scope of the NRSP covers terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems.
The NRSP utilises the national Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) - a framework developed in cooperation with the States and Territories (under the auspices of ANZECC) - to determine priority regions and ecosystems for reservation. Within the IBRA framework, the NRSP encourages States and Territories to address CAR principles in establishing a national system of protected areas. Within these limits, the NRSP is concerned with all types of ecosystems⁸⁰.
The NRSP does target the reservation of wetlands of international and national importance to some degree. Although the program has funded a small number of wetland acquisitions, it has, in previous years, been largely biased towards the reservation of particular terrestrial vegetation communities. Faunal values have been recognised and addressed in recent revisions of the NRSP guidelines.
The principle lying behind the selection of IBRA regions is the recognition that ecosystems depend largely on geology, landform and climate, mediated by community succession, fire, and of course the impact of human activities⁸¹. IBRA regions, then, are derived principally from geomorphology, as are sub-regions which most often use land system mapping as the basis for their derivation. Not surprisingly, the boundaries of major catchments sometimes feature in the definition of IBRA regions.
The reservation of sites solely on the basis of geology or geomorphic values has not yet been recognised as part of IBRA, and such sites are only picked up indirectly.
Both public and private land can be considered for protected area status under a number of schemes run by different States.
Freshwater ecosystems are not adequately addressed in the broad-scale IBRA analyses. This is a result of the importance of fine-scale geomorphic variations in determining the structure and function of freshwater ecosystems - and the fact that the primary focus of ecosystem and vegetation mapping in many States has been on terrestrial floristic variation as the basis for differentiating between ecosystems and communities. Some States, such as Victoria, include a geomorphic component in the delineation of vegetation and ecosystem type, but finer scale analyses are required in developing a regionalisation framework suited particularly to freshwater ecosystems.
In summary, the IBRA framework was developed to assist the NRSP, and State governments, in identifying gaps in the developing system of representative terrestrial reserves. Its target is to develop and categorise biodiversity surrogates at the highest useful level. By necessity, it involves broad-scale amalgamations of information on geomorphology, geology, vegetation, climate and soil type. In its current form it represents extremely useful categorisations of habitat at the landscape and regional level. IBRA regions, for the most part, contain similar assemblages of terrestrial ecosystems. The recognition that geomorphology, to a lesser or greater extent, includes information on drainage formations is vital in understanding the relevance of the IBRA framework in relation to freshwater ecosystems. However, the IBRA framework provides no more than a useful base for categorising freshwater ecosystems, as it does not include information on hydrology, and the scale at which it has been developed is at least an order of magnitude above the scale necessary for categorising rivers, and most lakes and wetlands.
Marine reserves are supported under a different program run by the Commonwealth Oceans Office. Marine areas are targeted for protected area status based on the related Interim Marine and Coastal Regionalisation for Australia (IMCRA) which uses a similar broad-scale ecosystem-based approach.
The development of State systems of representative freshwater reserves should logically be carried out within this existing framework. As discussed below, Victoria, Western Australia, the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory, and Queensland have made commitments (in the form of policy statements) to the establishment of systems of representative freshwater reserves. While New South Wales has made a commitment to the reservation of representative wetland types, this commitment is limited by the restricted definition of “wetlands” in the NSW Wetlands Management Policy. However, in spite of these commitments, no Australian State has moved to effectively implement such a system of reserves, and, at this stage, the NRS has not identified the development of such freshwater reserves in general as an important area for priority funding (having acknowledged above the NRSP targeting of wetlands of national importance).
I recommend that, as an urgent first step, viable examples (based on the CAR principles) of major distinct freshwater ecosystems should be identified and reserved within each IBRA region – in every State. Where no un-degraded representative examples exist, commitments should be made to the reservation and rehabilitation of at least one site within each IBRA region. The Commonwealth should take a lead in providing explicit “freshwater” funding within the NRSP program.
Moves should also be made to use the IBRA regions, and the principles lying behind their definition, to develop a regionalisation framework more specific to freshwater ecosystems.
The logic of Principle 8 of the national biodiversity strategy – with regard to freshwater - has not at this stage influenced funding for either the Commonwealth National Reserve System Program, or the Australian Biological Resources Study. While both programs are conceptually supportive of CAR freshwater reserves, neither is currently promoting the development of either comprehensive State freshwater inventories, or systems of CAR freshwater reserves.

5.4.2 The National Wetlands Program

The National Wetlands Program, like the NRS Program, runs within the budget of the Commonwealth Department of Environment (Environment Australia).
The National Wetlands Program funds actions related to Australia's international obligations under the Ramsar Convention (discussed above), such as policy development (eg: the Commonwealth's Wetlands Policy 1997 and related documents - discussed above).
The Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia is an important database developed by the program, which will be available online in its next edition.
Wetlands on Commonwealth land are managed under this program. Management plans for these areas are developed and implemented with Ramsar obligations in mind.