The Victorian Government's increasingly draconian controls over the Grampians National Park continue to be revealed. In recent weeks, Member for Western Victoria, Bev McArthur, has questioned the Andrews Government’s ‘set-aside’ regulations for the park which effectively reverse public access rights provisioned in the National Parks Act 1975.
An https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/881international study has revealed extensive removal of legal protection for conservation reserves, at a time when the preservation of these areas is more important than ever to biodiversity. The study, published today in Science, involving a global consortium of researchers led by Conservation International, documents how governments from 73 countries, including Australia, have removed more than 500,000 km2 from protected areas and downgraded protection for an additional 1.65 million km2 to allow greater human impacts.
The research examined losses occurring over a 125 year period. Alarmingly, more than three quarters of these losses occurred since 2000.
Dr Carly Cook, an ARC DECRA Fellow at Monash University’s School of Biological Sciences, led the assessment of changes to Australian protected areas.
She identified more than 1,500 changes, resulting in the removal of 13,000 km2 from conservation areas and undermining protection for an additional 400,000 km2.
“The losses we see in Australia reflect a shift towards the commercialisation and exploitation of conservation areas for human uses,” Dr Cook said.
“We’ve seen governments across the country open up protected areas to commercial developments, such as hotels and marinas, and introduce a string of changes to permit forestry, livestock grazing, hunting and fishing.”
“People think protected areas offer permanent protection for biodiversity, but this isn’t the case.
“The future for protected areas is increasingly uncertain at a time when natural systems face greater threats than ever.”
With an estimated 1 million species now at risk of extinction, what is the future for protected areas? The study shows that no conservation areas are immune to losses, with protection removed from important biodiversity hotspots, such as the Amazon Basin, and iconic areas, such as Yosemite National Park in the US.
Removing protected areas, or allowing activities that are not compatible with biodiversity conservation, will negatively impact the species these areas were designed to protect. Losing protection increases habitat loss and means natural areas become smaller and more fragmented.
The authors are calling for greater transparency to fully understand the scale of the problem and the impacts on biodiversity.
“A single change in legislation can have an alarming impacts,” said Dr Cook.
“For example, a legislative amendment to allow commercial development in NSW impacted 600 national parks and nature reserves.”
The study authors call for international conventions to establish systems to monitor and report on the loss of conservation areas that match current systems for tracking their establishment.
In the absence of systematic monitoring and reporting, studies such as this are critical for increasing awareness of the ways in which protected areas are being undermined.
A copy of the paper can be found here. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/881
If I had closed my eyes and angels had transported me to another 'Community Event' near a creek, how long would it have taken me to realise that I was somewhere else?
He stood facing towards the creek and the sea on the concrete esplanade amidst passing groups of people. Behind him were tent stalls, housing the advertising of corporate sponsors as well as local environmental information. There was a stage to the side and an array of white plastic tables and chairs arranged for the celebration and the re-enactment of a grand parade of 1918. A flotilla of floral decorated boats glided down the creek, their occupants dressed in costumes of the early settlers a century prior.
I got into conversation with the man because I knew him through his specialised knowledge and writing about local fauna and the environment. Immediately we were in tune ... but it was a sad tune. We both remembered another time when pleasure in our local environment was spontaneous and personal, solitary or otherwise, in a time well before the concrete we stood on had been poured.
He told me he remembered Australia with its wildlife, wild places and wonderful freedoms even within our suburbs encountered on his arrival from Europe in 1953 .
The re-enactment event that day was orchestrated, organised for the community's enjoyment and to show pride at the achievements of the creek conservation group.
Neither the ecologist nor I were at that moment engaged by the celebration.
Remarking on how activities in our city are increasingly organised, he echoed my thoughts.
This rings true, when I think of the festivals, marches, parades, Big Day's Out, Fun runs, triathlons and marathons that dot our calendars now. Maybe it's good for some but is it a sign of a change in our society? Is it a sign that we are increasingly looking to government authorities and commercial groups to commemorate community events and to organise that which did not always require organisation - our own leisure?
The conversation moved fast to wildlife matters, especially the local bandicoot population now threatened by a major road development about to bisect its habitat. I shared his concern at the prospect of the loss of this precious remnant of habitat and of an Australian animal that I never yet seen in the wild.
As we talked, a young woman in pink tights and little satin shorts loped past on very high stilts waving stiff elongated wooden arms draped with painted gossamer to give her the look of a butterfly. Behind us a row of tents held photographs and information about the local natural environment compiled by local groups of concerned naturalists.
The man took his leave but not before telling me that he thought it was "all over" and that massive change would be so fast that most of us would not be able to comprehend what is happening.
We said "goodbye" and I re-joined the table with my friends. A local member of parliament sat with us for a short while. I could not focus or communicate my amorphous concerns which felt more like internal alienation or anxiety than a problem for a can-do politician to tackle.
The band for whom I had been waiting eventually played their new and unfamiliar repertoire, at the end dipping back into past favourites with a masterful mesmerising performance of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" which had an intensity that fulfilled my yearning at that moment.
A little later we all adjourned to the pub where I looked through the windows to little snatches of dark blue sea scalloped with land and vegetation. The sea marked short straight lines across the sky with no hint of the Tsunami that I had heard was on its way across the Pacific.
To the right of my view was a very ugly new concrete bridge crossing what looked like a canal with straight sides but which was actually the creek around whose past and future the day's celebrations had focused.
At the timber pub table, the crew, bonded by years of local environmental struggles seemed happy that the day had gone well and got stuck into their celebration ..........But the next campaign looms .............if it is not already lost - an unwanted marina over-development.
Will our future leisure time be increasingly taken up with campaigns to preserve our environment from unwanted development? Will our social connections and celebrations also be related to these combats? Will our future be marked with more fun fairs but less real fun?
In Victoria in 1992 some bureaucrat got the idea of changing the name (and focus) of the Department of Conservation and Environment to a Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, then in 1996 to a Department of Natural Resources and Environment, then in 2003 a split to (1) a Victorian Department of Primary Industries and (2) a Department of Sustainability and Environment. 
Source: http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/asaw/biogs/A002037b.htm
Currently it's known by its obscure acronym DSE...(Don't Support Environment, or Department of Sparks and Embers).
Across the border in NSW, in 2007, the Department of Environment and Conservation was changed to the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC). Rather than forming a dedicated research and response organisation to focus on climate change, the conservation was dropped from the existing department. Cynically, including 'climate change' as a name of one of its departments, government must feel cosy sending a message it is addressing climate change. For a while the department was headed up by The NSW Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water - a bucket of outdoor type activities that sounded good together.
Across the border in South Australia, they have the Department for the Environment and Heritage (DEH), which sounds borrowed from the federal Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (another collective bucket). It is hard to see how with so many diverse portfolios, a minister can dedicate any leadership to making genuine improvements to what's left of Australia's intact natural environment and its desperate need for conservation.
With all the money spent on names changing, the tens of thousands could have gone into onground conservation activities like fox control programmes.
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