The future of Australian National Parks

[Hallu]

An interesting article in Australian Geographic : http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/ ... 0614418338

I've read a lot about US parks, and this article feels like the questions the Americans were asking themselves about 70 years ago. At that time, no nation-wide long term survey of the wildlife in the parks had been done. They had no idea that predators were essential to the balance of the ecosystems. Australia isn't facing the exact same problems, but the big picture is the same : we don't know how our ecosystems work. Man-triggered burnoffs have been a failure in the Top End, pest control has failed, for many native species we have no idea why they're in decline, and we keep talking about introducing new species to solve problems we created in the first place. I'm quite pessimistic about the future of Australia's wildlife (on the mainland at least). The number of pests is insane : dogs, cats, foxes, wild pigs, donkeys, goats, deers, horses, cane toads, camels, rats, rabbits, not to mentions birds, invasive plants... It's staggering.

I trully believe Australia's only chance is to do it right :
1) Before experimenting (like this crazy idea with elephants), first do a nation wide survey of the wildlife and the ecosystems. A REAL grand scale survey, it needs big funding.
2) Merge scattered parks into big protected areas, and make them into real national parks, surveyed by a real national park service. Instead of having hundreds of parks no one knows, merge them into huge parks that people will remember. This is especially needed in states like Queensland or NSW.
3) Make the parks sacred, as they are in the US and Canada : no dams, no hunting, no logging, no mining. If for some areas you can't do that, then don't call them National Parks. Demote them to state parks or recreationnal areas.

But America had money, loads of it. And more importantly, they had many rich people who donated their money and time to the parks : buying up land for conservation, building roads, launching promotion campains, gathering public opinion. Not only that, many US presidents like both the Roosevelts and Jimmy Carter deeply cared about conservation, not to mention that in Congress, it was often a notion shared both by democrats and republicans. In Australia, it doesn't seem like the Liberals care much about conservation. Nor do the few wealthy Australians who could help like Stephen Mather and John D Rockefeller Jr did in the US. And Australia has less than a 10th of America's population, so funding can't come from parks visitation. Not to mention it doesn't seem there is any nation wide plan for anything, it's always local ideas. So maybe it could learn from a huge sparsely populated country like Canada, who managed to apply US Parks concepts ? Canada is huge, and yet it only has about 40 national parks. Australia has 500 to 600 parks. A couple decades ago, it had 500 ONLY in Queensland. The more the better ? It seems to be the exact opposite. If you can make so many areas into national parks, it means your concept of a national park is totally wrong in the first place.

Creating a NP should mean funding will be given for its management, jobs will be created to survey the land, trails and visitor centres will be erected. It means it should be under the care of the Federal government, not the state. You can't do that ? Then don't bother, private owners, like said in the article, may do a better job at pest control. In America, historically the federal government could be trusted to take care of the land, while the greedy states wanted to log it to the ground and mine it like Swiss cheese. In Australia, it seems to be the exact opposite, the states don't trust the government, and there is no national laws applied for the NPs. If we apply US criteria for a national park, then Australia has only 6 REAL national parks : Booderee, Christmas Island, Kakadu, Norfold Island, Pulu Keeling, and Uluru-Kata Tjutta. The rest are all state parks really. When I raised the issue on this forum, many people answered that the government can't be trusted (and it seemed they were talking both about liberal and labor), and that's why there aren't more federal national parks. What's the answer then ? It's such a mess I can't wrap my head around it. And I can't seem to find books raising the issue. I'm curious to know what you guys think.

[Nuts]

Interesting thoughts Hallu, I agree with your suggestions, a review and enhancing the concept of NP's as places that are 'sacred'.
Size matters but I'm not sure the overall area needs to increase, much more could be made of a concept of sustainable (useful to people and governments) recreational zones on crown land and for ecology on private land, doesn't necessarily need to look pristine to provide habitat corridors along with other use (and a wider range of users).

[jdeks]

Good article. Fair points about the merits of 'superparks' for more efficient use of management resources. Though I can't help that feel we'd lament the loss of some of the smaller 'pockets' of nature that mean we can pop out for an overnight hike on any given weekend, instead of having to plan in a 6 hour drive to get to the trailhead.

At the end of the day though, what we have at the moment is actually pretty *&%$#! good. Generally speaking, we've got a fairly good sense of appreciation of the value of nature in both the population as a whole, and the government. We actually have protected areas, and they are actually protected (albeit perhaps not optimally). I've been living and travelling around Asia for a while now, and their attitude towards environmental protection makes me want to scream. Unless they stand to make something from it, not a single damn is given, by the power or the people. The 'national parks' are a joke, managed by either by corrupt police and officials, or sold off to a private operator - both charging tolls and fees at any excuse. If they actually have something worth seeing, they're like theme parks, full of souvenir stands, chained up monkeys and elephants, and beer shacks littered with empty tins. Swathes of rainforest cleared and concreted make way for roads and parking lots and picnic tables as close to the photo spots as possible. If we ran our parks like they did, Mt Kosciusko would have a McDonalds on it.

But then, Mt Hotham has a ski resort.

I guess we're lucky in that we're a massive country with only a handful of people, so even if we try to ruin it, we can only ruin so much at a time. That could change, given time, but at least it's a topic of discussion here.

[LachlanB]

Hmm, from a conservation perspective, I don't think that superparks are particularly good idea. A lot of the smaller, fragmentary reserves exist because they protect remnant vegetation of endangered ecosystems (especially nature reserves). Most of Australia's National Parks are either on really infertile or really steep terrain (or both), and many of the reserves on the remainder a small fragments. I certainly don't think we have too many parks, we barely meet the target of 17% of land area. I think funding is the real killer, an the environment needs more of it.
But I think you're right, an integrated national NPWS would be fantastic.

[Gadgetgeek]

I think each area/country/region has to come up with a conservation method that makes sense for it. A lot of Canada's national parks are naturally protected by being insanely inaccessible. Unfortunately a whole lot of Australia is accessible with fuel capacity being one of the few limits. So the rules that work for one, might not on the other. Choices are always made, do you develop skiing on the front side of a mountain to pay to protect the back? Do you limit access to the river by actively managing and developing the lake? But as long as the attitude towards the environment is either "she'll be right" or "trying to fix it last time messed it up, so better keep our hands off" its going to be tough. Parks are just one part of the larger equation, one that most people look at and then go back to their day-to-day worries. As much as we give lots of credit to the early US in forming parks, it was a rich man's idea really irrespective of the "common good" Over time they morphed into what they are now, but pure altruism isn't quite the core.

All in all, it would be cheap and easy to make happen, it would just take public will, and non-partisan support. But at the end of the day, if the planet in general isn't a priority, parks won't happen, and sadly as much progress has been made, a lot of decision makers are stuck in 1955 thinking that natural resources are limitless and consequence free.

[north-north-west]

All in all, it would be cheap and easy to make happen...

No, it wouldn't.

Reserves need appropriate funding to fix the massive problems caused by feral plants and animals, and of human use past, present and future. Even finding out how to fix those problems will not be cheap, much less to implement the necessary changes. Plus, as Hallu said to begin with, we don't really know exactly what is there, or how much of that 'belongs' there and how much doesn't.

It would be easier with a national standard, national oversight, and widescale funding. But as long as the political and social landscape remains as it does - with people more focused on enhancing economic status than anything else - that will not happen. And even if it did, the parks would then still be too vulnerable to political whim. What is required is a complete and permanent change of attitude throughout the country; a realisation that we depend on our environment for our very existence and cannot keep taking and taking without thought for the consequences; an acceptance that sooner or later sacrifices will have to be made and the sooner we start the less difficult it will be - and the greater the chance of success.

[maddog]

Hello Hallu,

Australia’s national parks are doing just fine – though they probably cover too much of Tasmania. No need for Canberra to take over – local (regional) control and decision making is a much better model. Local is responsive and accountable as Canberra is remote and unaccountable. Importing elephants, to fill a vacant ecological niche, the idea is a good one. And dogs as a pest? The article you reference seems to suggest they are just the opposite.

Cheers,

Maddog.

[north-north-west]

Hello Hallu,

Australia’s national parks are doing just fine – though they probably cover too much of Tasmania. No need for Canberra to take over – local (regional) control and decision making is a much better model. Local is responsive and accountable as Canberra is remote and unaccountable. Importing elephants, to fill a vacant ecological niche, the idea is a good one. And dogs as a pest? The article you reference seems to suggest they are just the opposite.

Cheers,

Maddog.

Anything to de-Australianise the bush, eh? Why am I not surprised at that response?

Elephants would not fill a vacant ecological niche. Plus, there are enough feral imports out there as it is without adding more. And why do I bother dignifying this rubbish with a response?

[Hallu]

Maddog is as his nickname suggests, mad.

To be clear, I don't think Australia has too much protected land, far from it. I just think those scattered protected areas should be connected to each other by adding more. People can't identify to the parks if there are so many of them. People know the Grampians, Alpine, Kosciuszko. They have no idea what's Woomargama, Barmah, or Parooh Darling. Barmah should be merged with Murray Valley to make an interstate park (they can't even do that ? it's just changing the names, they already share a border), Woomargama should be merged with the 4 or 5 state parks surrounding it, and Parooh Darling, which I visited like 3 years ago, is small and barely accessible, does it even qualify as a National Park ? I like that it's protected but it's an old lake with a pic nic table... The road was awful and there isn't a single walking track there... and yet there's a beautiful visitor centre at White Cliffs. I couldn't understand the logic.

But I think Gadgetgeek is right on one thing : Australia is indeed huge, but most of it is semi arid and 4WD accessible. Most of Canada is inaccessible in winter, or even all year long to land vehicles due to thick forests and lack of roads. In that sense, maybe it'd be better to do like Europe does : have parks with a fully protected core (no hunting, farming, settling, logging etc...) and a surrounding area that's protected as well but with people still allowed to live in it if they agree to take care of the land (ideally traditional farmers with small fields or a small number of livestock). The problem is that Australia traditionally has huge cattle stations, not small time organic farmers so maybe a new approach is needed, in collaboration with those big stations. After all, in central Australia, they're the ones who shoot the camels because they cause harm to their property, not park rangers. Maybe fund them to kill pests in exchange for new conservation measures in the way they exploit their property (more efficient use of water, native vegetation planting, native wildlife survey) ? Or does that already exist in some states ?

[Gadgetgeek]

Cheap and easy is relative, I mean, what's a park compared to the cost of a submarine, or a wing of fighter-bombers? But I hear what you are saying North, from where we sit its a heap of money.

[LachlanB]

Farming in central Australia is only viable because of the huge stations. The size of the stations allows them to reduce the stocking rates and still remain viable. When the stations are broken up into many smallholdings, social and environmental collapse occurs at the next major drought (eg, the Federation Drought). This is because the farmers are forced to increase the stocking rates on their smaller parcels of land to break even. Then as the land dries out, these higher stocking rates are unsustainable, and there is mass starvation of sheep and cattle as the survivors strip the land bare. This causes the farmers to go broke too. So, its not really practical to use this sort of off reserve method in central Australia.

[maddog]

G’day NNW,

Wrong side of the bed this morning? Elephants have been proposed as a sustainable solution to the gamba grass problem. What is your solution? The aerial application of chemicals? Broad-scale mechanical clearing?

Hello Hallu,

Organic farmers destroy soil. But I agree with you on local decision making. Why not hand back control, with the current funding, to local communities to make decisions over their own environment? New ideas are certainly required – and new ideas are not what we get from precious, purse-lipped, environmentalists.

Cheers,

Maddog.

[Hallu]

Maddog your answers are ALWAYS backwards, it's like you do it on purpose... You're sure you're not a fake ? Industrial farming destroys soil, organic farming doesn't that's the idea of organic, sustainable farming... You also don't seem to know about this new (and yet ancestral) way of farming called agroforestry. You get better yield by combining crops and native plants : the trees provide shade, mulch, protection against the elements, prevent erosion, break up the soil so crops can grow roots more easily etc...

[vicrev]

Sorry to say it,the only people who really care about oz parks etc, are on this forum & forums similar,the Canberra fat cats are not interested, except, before an election ,then they have a sudden loss of memory.......Also the average Australian does not give a fat rats about the parks,all he/she wants to do is hoon up & down the tracks & would love to buy a Macca's inside the park......Just about everybody on this forum has the same fundamental idea about how to save /preserve the parks,please, do not squabble & *&%$#! about some one elses idea/belief....it will only end in self destruction of the concept of preserving the parks for future generations...........

[maddog]

Hello Hallu,

Good luck with that in arid Australia. You may however be interested in the idea of zero till farming – it corrects the deficiencies of the organic method.

Cheers,

Maddog.

[vicrev]

Just read your posts again Hallu,its amazing how an outsider (please do not take offence Hallu,none was meant ) sometimes has a clearer picture of the situation than insiders who have lived here all their lives......

[north-north-west]

G’day NNW,

Wrong side of the bed this morning? Elephants have been proposed as a sustainable solution to the gamba grass problem. What is your solution? The aerial application of chemicals? Broad-scale mechanical clearing?

Introducing one feral species to control another. Gee, that's a new idea, isn't it? Not like it's been done before with . . . oh with cane toads or anything like that, is it?

[Hallu]

I take it as a compliment Vicrev. I'd have stayed in Australia and would have become an Australian citizen if I could, but I couldn't find another research job there. I still hope to come back and finish my days there though, fingers crossed.

[vicrev]

I take it as a compliment Vicrev. I'd have stayed in Australia and would have become an Australian citizen if I could, but I couldn't find another research job there. I still hope to come back and finish my days there though, fingers crossed.

Hallu, not if,but,when you come back,try for a parks admin job or similar.you put most Aussies to shame with your passion & care, for our environment & preservation of our fauna & flora..........

[maddog]

G’day NNW,

The Cactoblastis Moth? A rust fungus for Crofton weed? You prefer we not make such introductions?

Cheers,

Maddog.

[north-north-west]

G’day NNW,

The Cactoblastis Moth? A rust fungus for Crofton weed? You prefer we not make such introductions?

I prefer we don't add anything that we cannot be 100% sure of having an overwhelmingly positive impact. The elephant idea is so absurd it goes beyond even the cane toad fiasco.

Keep going, but you'll do so alone. I should know better than to get sucked into one of your ridiculous point scoring exercises.

[maddog]

We cannot ever by 100% sure of anything NNW, let alone an 'overwhelmingly positive impact'. Such a demand is clearly unreasonable as it is unnecessary. It is the thinking that Flannery suggests will prove the downfall of our natural estate – the inability of the bureaucratic mind to take risk. Any risk. And yet, says Flannery, we slide towards extinctions…

And just what is so bad about the elephant idea anyway?

Thanks,

Maddog.

[vicrev]

It isn't Africa.....

[Hallu]

An elephant in Kakadu is about as out of place as putting tigers in German forests to get rid of the overpopulation of wild boars. It might help, but there has to be another way. Elephants trample vegetation and destroy trees, not to mention charge people. Eucalypts are not made to deal with elephants. Also, you have no idea what the impact on native wildlife such as roos, euros and wallabies would be. Yes it would be easier to control their numbers than say goats or donkeys, as elephants kinda stand out, but it simply doesn't belong in an Australian ecosystem the same way camels don't. Besides, elephants are endangered everywhere in the world, so why would Australia get some (I'm asumming from a zoo or a reserve) for such a crazy project ? Shouldn't these elephants help strengthen their already diminished wild population ?

[Travis22]

I think when the matter of removing cows in the ANP isnt universally agreed upon it really shows pretty clearly that many many members of the public still have no idea with regards to caring for our parks.

The pessamist in me says we'd be more likely to see some parks reduced in size rather then adding more land to or merging parks to create larger more obvious ones.

I guess the 'Great Forest National Park' will be a clue as to where things are going.

Travis.

[maddog]

G’day Vicrev,

Gamba grass is an African and Crofton weed a Mexican - both causing problems in Australia. If we are happy to control Crofton with a Mexican fungus – why not control the grass with an African mammal?

Hello Hallu,

As you say Elephants could be controlled if necessary. Conserving our rangelands by preventing the spread of invasive scrub, given the lack of indigenous burning, would be an added bonus. It’s a vacant niche we really do need to fill.

Tourism would also benefit.

Cheers,

Maddog.

[LachlanB]

Elephants really aren't a good idea; I think the original suggestion was scientific, but not entirely serious.
They're just horses and camels but on a bigger scale and more damaging. And both of those are trashing portions of the Australian environment and are likely to be here to stay.

[Hallu]

I'd say tourism would suffer from it. People want to see authentic ecosystems now, they're disappointed when you show them a plant or an animal and you tell them it's an invasive species or introduced one. A national park isn't a zoo. Australia has unique flora and fauna, and tourism can only suffer from trying to change that.

[vicrev]

So, Maddog we bring elephants in & train them to eat only Gamba grass ? .... dream on.........

[maddog]

Hallo Hallu,

There are all kinds of tourists. Those that flock to the Gold Coast are not seeking ‘authenticity’. I’m sure many a busload of Chinese visitors would enjoy the sight of elephants in the outback from the comfort of a minivan. Americans too.

G’day Vicrev,

I assume you are aware that invasive native scrub is a significant problem on the rangelands.

Cheers,

Maddog.