Freshwater ecosystems

3.3 The COAG Water Reform Agenda

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Water Reform Agenda³⁹ (a major national strategy formalised by a COAG agreement in 1994) lists ecological sustainability as a central element of the agenda.
As part of the COAG water reform agenda, all Australian States have revised, or are revising, water legislation. One aspect of this revision allows investors (within certain constraints) to build dams and sell water – not an option available to the private sector under previous arrangements in several States. In some States (notably Tasmania and Queensland) these changes have produced a flurry of interest by investors in the construction of new dams.
The agenda stresses that issues of sustainability, and the environmental needs of rivers must be taken into account in planning water infrastructure developments.
In regard to the COAG requirements relating to the sustainable development of water resources, the Strategic Water Reform Framework (1994) declared that:

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  ‘future investment in new schemes or extensions to existing schemes be undertaken only after appraisal indicates it is economically viable and ecologically sustainable’ and
  
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  ‘where significant future irrigation activity or dam construction is contemplated, appropriate measures are to be undertaken to…allow natural resource managers to satisfy themselves that the environmental requirements of the river systems would be adequately met before (my emphasis) any harvesting of the water resource occurs’.
  

As mentioned above, the agenda lists ecological sustainability as a central element of the agenda. An essential part of any ecological sustainability program is the protection of biological diversity, and, as discussed above, a system of representative protected areas is one of the two central themes of biodiversity conservation, world-wide. However, this logical link has not been incorporated into COAG processes or programs, as these programs operate only through existing Commonwealth / State multilateral agreements, which are themselves deficient in this respect. See discussion below.
Overall, the agenda has been a powerful influence in both environmental and economic areas, and the sunset of the agenda in July 2001 is a matter of some concern, as many aspects of the agenda are in comparatively early stages of implementation. Readers are referred to Fisher (2000) for an overview of the environmental outcomes of the agenda's microeconomic reform package.

3.4 Freshwater biodiversity programs: an important “gap”

It is worth noting that a cornerstone of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the national biodiversity strategy (that is: the creation of representative reserves⁴⁰) did not appear in the “Actions” listed later in the national biodiversity strategy (see section 2.5 Water, p.21). Under subsection 2.5.1 we find that the “recommended action” relates solely to “establishing inventories of the condition and extent of wetlands, floodplains and riparian ecosystems”. There is no mention of the use of such inventories in strategic conservation planning, or their use in developing a system of representative reserves based on such information – even though these actions were (and are) being applied to terrestrial ecosystems⁴¹. The words chosen in the strategy were taken directly from the 1992 National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (objective 18.2), continuing what appears to have been an oversight in this earlier document.
This oversight appears to be a major gap that merits attention in the context of the ongoing program to implement the national biodiversity strategy (including the National Reserves System, and the Australian Biological Resources Study), as well as the ongoing program to implement the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Water Reform Agenda (such as the National River Health Program)⁴².

3.5 International agreements relating to wetlands

3.5.1 International Convention on Biological Diversity 1992

The Convention (discussed above), ratified by Australia in 1993, requires that signatories to the agreement identify and monitor major representative ecosystems. The scope of the definitions of "ecosystems" and "habitats" in the extract below includes terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments:

Convention Annex I

IDENTIFICATION AND MONITORING

1. Ecosystems and habitats: containing high diversity, large numbers of endemic or threatened species, or wilderness; required by migratory species; of social, economic, cultural or scientific importance; or, which are representative, unique or associated with key evolutionary or other biological processes (my emphasis);

2. Species and communities which are: threatened; wild relatives of domesticated or cultivated species; of medicinal, agricultural or other economic value; or social, scientific or cultural importance; or importance for research into the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, such as indicator species; and

3. Described genomes and genes of social, scientific or economic importance.
To fulfil this obligation, Australian States need to classify rivers, lakes, wetlands and aquifers according to criteria which will allow representative values to be identified, and representative reserves selected. Victoria has made some progress in this regard, while other States have not developed comprehensive freshwater inventories which could allow such identification and selection.

3.5.2 The Ramsar convention

The Australian Government, on behalf of all its States, is a party to a number of “special purpose” international conventions that require it to protect natural areas. The most directly relevant of these for freshwater ecosystems is the Convention on Wetlands – often called the Ramsar Convention – which the Australian government signed in 1971, and which came into effect in 1975. “Wise use” is a key principle of the Convention⁴³.
Under the convention, parties are required to:

• nominate suitable sites as Wetlands of International Importance and to manage those sites to maintain their ecological values;

• formulate and implement land-use planning procedures to include wetland conservation considerations;

• develop national systems of wetland reserves; and

• to co-operate with other nations in promoting the wise use of wetlands, where wetlands and their resources, such as migratory birds, are shared.

Listing of a wetland on the Ramsar list means that the member country undertakes to take special measures to ensure protection of the values for which it was listed. Australia was the first country to become a party to the Convention and also the first to nominate a site to the Ramsar list. This was the Coburg peninsula, an Aboriginal Land and Wildlife Sanctuary in the Northern Territory, which then became the world’s first Wetland of International Importance. Australia now has 49 wetlands on the list.

It is important to note that Ramsar's Criteria for identifying wetlands of international importance⁴⁴ starts with "representative or unique wetlands". This criteria cannot be applied in the absence of comprehensive inventories which embody classifications of wetland type⁴⁵. After 30 years, Australia has fulfilled only part of its obligations under the Convention. Comprehensive wetland inventories, and comprehensive national reserve systems remain uncompleted.

3.5.3 CAMBA and JAMBA

Australia is also a signatory to the Japan-Australia Migratory Birds Agreement (JAMBA) and the China-Australia Migratory Birds Agreement (CAMBA) which call for the protection of species listed in the Agreements and their habitats.

3.5.4 Definitions

The definition of “wetlands” used in the Ramsar convention is of great importance, as the original definition encompassed all freshwater ecosystems, other than groundwater or karst⁴⁶ ecosystems, and, importantly, includes all flowing waterways⁴⁷. In other words, Ramsar’s use of “wetlands” includes all rivers and streams, as opposed to the meaning more commonly attributed to the term in Australia, which excludes such water bodies. However, in order to fulfil Australia's obligations under Ramsar, programs need to be developed covering all those ecosystems which are encompassed by the full Ramsar definition. In this paper I use the term “freshwater ecosystems” to include all wetlands and rivers, plus all groundwater ecosystems.
Definitions used by the Commonwealth and States, and their implications, are discussed below in the section dealing with State programs. The most important variation (in terms of our discussion) relates to the inclusion or exclusion of rivers and streams.

3.5.5 The Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia 1996

The Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia has been developed in part fulfilment of Ramsar obligations. In the directory, Australian wetlands have been broadly categorised according to their importance: ie: at international (per Ramsar), national and State levels. It should be noted that the Directory is incomplete at this stage, but has the potential to incorporate freshwater sites generally (both flowing as well as still) when Australian programs expand to cover all Ramsar wetland categories.
The Directory provides criteria for the identification of important wetlands within recognised bioregions and also has the ability to include wetlands additional to the Ramsar system, such as rock pools.