Freshwater Protected Area Resourcbook

10. Recommendations

To recapitulate, there are a small number of urgent issues. Firstly, although some representative examples of freshwater ecosystems are contained within existing protected areas, no systematic national review has been conducted to identify gaps in the reserve network. It is likely that many freshwater ecosystem types are not adequately protected – particularly those of riverine or subterranean nature. Secondly, although all jurisdictions are developing inventories of freshwater ecosystems, these remain incomplete. Nowhere are they comprehensive in the sense of containing up-to-date data on value, condition and threat over wetlands, rivers and subterranean ecosystems. The acceleration of work on inventories is urgent to underpin both protected area gap analysis studies, and developing regional NRM strategies. Thirdly, river degradation is ubiquitous and increasing over much of temperate Australia; the identification and protection of remaining rivers of high conservation value is urgent. In all three areas, the Commonwealth needs to play a leading role, particularly with respect to promoting and funding inter-State working groups to address these issues in a coordinated way. Fourthly, the sympathetic management of biodiversity outside protected area frameworks is essential, and urgent action needs to be taken to encourage and support biodiversity conservation measures on freehold and agricultural land. Fifthly, both terrestrial and freshwater reserves, such as Ramsar sites, are threatened by cumulative alterations in hydrologic connectivity within the greater landscape (Pringle 2001). It is essential that the management of cumulative effects be managed in a much stronger and more integrated fashion, with far greater attention to five key management principles (Appendix 15).
The long-term benefits of creating freshwater protected areas far outweigh short term costs. Many marine protected areas have been shown to enhance fisheries outside the protected zone (Gell & Roberts 2003). Some freshwater protected areas will have similar effects, with consequent benefits for recreational fishers. Australian hunter’s organisations have helped fund the purchase of freshwater areas which provide breeding grounds for ducks and other waterbirds. Farmers will benefit from the protection of aquifer recharge areas. Indigenous groups supported the formation of the first listed Ramsar site in the world: Coburg Peninsula in the Northern Territory. All Australians will benefit from the protection of our living freshwater environments – which have huge cultural, recreational, educational and spiritual values.

10.1 Development of a national freshwater protected area framework

We believe that Australian nature conservation programs are now at the point where effort needs to be focused toward programs protecting existing high-value freshwater ecosystems . Given the continuing decline of inland aquatic ecosystems over much of the Australian continent, it is now urgent that the development of comprehensive, adequate and representative inland aquatic protected areas be elevated, nationwide, as a high priority. In addition to the protection of representative ecosystems, unique and vulnerable aquatic ecosystems need to be identified and protected. A national freshwater protected area framework needs to be developed.
Our three central recommendations on this issue are that:

1. 
   National protocols be established for the collection and storage of freshwater ecosystem attribute data to support the development of nationally compatible ecosystem classifications and inventories. The development of national and state freshwater ecosystem inventories is an Australian responsibility under the Ramsar convention²⁷⁰, and for the Commonwealth “a comprehensive national inventory remains a long-term goal”²⁷¹. States are currently using different classification approaches of varying sophistication. Different approaches to classification can be useful, and no ideal classification exists to suit all purposes. Collecting and storing attribute data free of classification not only allows States to continue using existing classifications, but such an approach also opens an opportunity to use such data to develop separate national classifications and inventories. Such inventories would utilise nested hierarchies of ecosystem classifications, allowing the allocation of freshwater ecosystems into (‘representative’) categories. Using nested hierarchies allows a staged approach, with initial work confined to the simpler categories supported by existing data. As more data becomes available, more sophisticated analysis can be undertaken. This approach to classification could underpin the development of a national inventory of freshwater ecosystems, including rivers, wetlands and aquifers (see section 5.9 above). The development of an ‘interim freshwater bioregionalisation of Australia’ would complement and extend the utility of such an approach;
   
2. 
   A national approach be developed to enable the identification of gaps in the existing protected area system relating specifically to freshwater ecosystems. Such an approach would incorporate methods for identifying and selecting potential inland aquatic protected areas; and
   
3. 
   Programs be funded to establish and manage a comprehensive, adequate and representative network of inland aquatic protected areas (which would be developed as an outcome of the implementation of the first two recommendations). This network would sit within a national framework, most probably as part of an expanded National Reserves System, and would utilise both State and Commonwealth funding.
   

These actions, we believe, should be initiated within the cooperative frameworks of the National Reserve System (NRS) and the NRM Ministerial Council, assisted by agencies such as the Commonwealth Department of Fisheries, Forests and Agriculture, and the Department of the Environment and Heritage (wetlands program). The National Audit, and Land and Water Australia (including the National Rivers Consortium) have much to contribute and need to be involved. The principles used in terrestrial and marine reserve identification and selection (see section 3.3) should provide a base for the development of national approaches.

As concerns developed three decades ago that the terrestrial reserves network should protect representative examples of terrestrial ecosystems, Specht (1975) recommended that at least one large sample of each major terrestrial ecosystem in each biogeographic division of each State should be incorporated into an ecological reserve, either by designating the whole or part of existing national parks and other nature conservation reserves as ecological reserves or, where necessary, by acquisition of land. The same logic can be applied today in relation to freshwater ecosystems, bearing in mind comments made above about the development of regionalisations applicable to freshwater ecosystems. All we need to do is replace the word “terrestrial” in Specht’s recommendation with the word “freshwater”.
It is instructive to note that various freshwater protection tools exist under State water, catchment and fisheries legislation, but that these provisions have generally not been used (to date) by jurisdictions with any enthusiasm (see Table 1.1 and Appendix 4). This is apparently due to the reluctance of the relevant management authorities to accept environmental responsibilities which they now have within their mandate, but have historically been the province of nature conservation agencies. Such agencies have generally not seen nature conservation, particularly relating to site reservation or protection, as part of their core business. As a consequence, these legislative protection tools lie largely unused at this point in time.