Suchergebnisse

Despite the recognised importance of private land for biodiversity conservation, there has been little research into systems of private protected areas at a country-wide level. Here I look at definitions, legislation, ownership, management approaches and effectiveness, distribution and incentives provided to private protected areas in Australia. The term 'private protected areas', although increasingly used, still suffers from a lack of a clear and concise definition in Australia. Australian states and territories have legislation enabling the application of conservation covenants over private land; covenants being the primary mechanism to secure conservation intent on the title of the land in perpetuity. If considering all 'in perpetuity' conservation covenants under a dedicated program to be private protected areas and land owned by non-government organisations and managed for the purpose of biodiversity conservation, there were approximately 5,000 terrestrial properties that could be considered private protected areas in Australia covering 8,913,000 ha as at September 2013. This comprises almost 4,900 conservation covenants covering over 4,450,000 ha and approximately 140 properties owned by private land trusts covering approximately 4,594,120 ha. Most conservation covenanting programs now seek to complement the comprehensiveness, adequacy and representativeness of the public reserve system, either stating so explicitly or by aiming to protect the highest priority ecosystems on private land. There are a range of incentives offered for private land conservation and requirements of owners of private protected areas to report on their activities vary in Australia. However, there are a number of key policy challenges that need to be addressed if private protected areas are to achieve their full potential in Australia, including managing broad-scale ecosystem processes, protection and tenure reform, improved financial incentives, and access to emerging ecosystem service markets.

AbstractGlobally, there is an urgent need for widespread restoration of coastal wetlands like mangroves and saltmarsh. This restoration has been slow to progress in Australia for a number of reasons, including legal issues surrounding land tenure, ownership and use. This paper uses the responses to a survey of coastal zone experts to identify and articulate these legal issues, before considering and analysing in-depth recommendations, solutions and levers to facilitate restoration, and areas where further research or possible policy and/or law reform is needed. It calls for legislative reform to clarify tidal boundaries generally and under sea-level rise, greater use of incentive schemes to encourage the uptake of restoration projects, and utilisation of contracts and land-based covenants to secure projects and carbon flows.

Abstract
Urbanisation is a leading cause of biodiversity loss and habitat fragmentation internationally, and the conservation of representative native assemblages is a challenge confronting environmental managers in expanding urban landscapes. This study investigates the bird assemblages occurring in a rapidly growing regional centre, Ballarat, southeastern Australia. It aims to examine the relationships between urbanisation and bird communities in a regional city by investigating the differences in bird assemblage composition related to the type of vegetation (native or exotic) in urban streetscapes. Bird surveys were completed across four broad habitat types: remnant vegetation, exotic streetscapes, native streetscapes and newly developed streetscapes. Each habitat type had three 1 ha replicate sites. Results show that remnant vegetation fringing residential areas and native streetscapes supported around 60% more native bird species than exotic and newly developed streetscapes. Avian species composition was significantly different between broad habitat types, with remnant vegetation and native streetscapes maintaining representative native bird assemblages, but exotic streetscapes and newly developed streetscapes were dominated by introduced birds. Our results show that, for representative native bird assemblages to be maintained in urban areas, the maintenance of remnant and native vegetation is essential.

Australia is experiencing mounting pressures related to processes of urbanisation, biodiversity loss and climate change felt at large in cities. At the same time, it is cities that can take the leading role in pioneering approaches and solutions to respond to those coupling emergencies. In this perspective piece we respond to the following question: What are the required transformations for prioritising, valuing, maintaining and embracing nature in cities in Australia? We adopt the mission framework as an organising framework to present proposed pathways to transform Australian cities as nature-positive places of the future. We propose three interconnected pathways as starting actions to steer urban planning, policy and governance in Australian cities: First, cities need to establish evidence-based planning for nature in cities and mainstream new planning tools that safeguard and foreground urban nature. Second, collaborative planning needs to become a standard practice in cities and inclusive governance for nature in cities needs to prioritise Aboriginal knowledge systems and practices as well as look beyond what local governments can do. Third, for progressing to nature-positive cities, it is paramount to empower communities to innovate with nature across Australian cities. Whilst we focus on Australian cities, the lessons and pathways are broadly applicably globally and can inspire science-policy debates for the post COP15 biodiversity and COP26 climate change implementation processes.