Be informed this election with our 'Federal Environment Policy Priorities'

As the federal election campaign approaches crunch time, Australians are still waiting for both Labor and the Coalition to present clear, positive environment policies.

In a move to urge both major parties to deliver policies that protect our native forests, unique ecosystems, marine environments and iconic places like the Kimberley and Cape York, the Wilderness Society has released our Federal Environment Policy Priorities for 2010.

As part of our policy launch, we have approached all the major parties for responses as part of assessing their positions and policies. The headline areas requiring clear policy commitments in the lead up to the August 21 election are:

• Protecting the forests and woodlands of Southern Australia
• Safeguarding our marine environment
• Conserving Northern Australia
• Developing Indigenous Conservation opportunities
• Managing Rivers and Water
• Securing nature’s carbon stores
• Stopping uranium mining

The Wilderness Society is politically non-aligned. We are widely promoting our assessment of the parties and their conservation policies as a way of informing 50,000 members and the broader public of the choices before them. 

We have provided a summary of the key priorities below. (Download the full Federal Environment Policy Priorities 2010 document)

Summary: Federal Environment Policy Priorities 2010

The Forests of Southern Australia

• Support the immediate protection of Tasmania's forests that are vital for protecting biodiversity, climate and water and work towards a rapid transition of industrial logging out of Tasmania's native forests
• Recognise and support the contribution that phasing out native forest logging would make to reducing Australia’s Greenhouse Emissions
• Support a rapid roll out for the protection of the rest of Australia's threatened forests across Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia, along with a rapid transition of industrial logging activities out of these forests by:
• Australia-wide - Ban native forest wood being used to produce electricity
• Victoria - Work with the Victorian government in the lead up to the November 27 election, to expedite a transition plan for Victoria’s native forest logging industry into its plantation resource
• WA - Work with the WA government, industry, local residents and conservation groups to protect identified high conservation value (HCV) forests including Chester, Helms, Mundlimup, Quindanning and Warrup. Ensure new proposals for large-scale bauxite strip-mining covering tens of thousands of hectares of WA jarrah and karri forests are rejected, e.g. Bauxite Resources Ltd
• NSW – Work with the NSW government to transition NSW’s native forest logging industry into plantations

Climate Change

Develop a comprehensive approach to protecting and restoring carbon stores in the natural landscape including:

• protection of native forests and woodlands
• increased size and improved management of protected areas
• controlling land clearing and encouraging ecological restoration on private land
• improved fire management particularly across the tropical savannah and inland woodlands and
• restoration of degraded landscapes
• Ensure that avoided emissions and sequestration associated with increased forest protection and restoration are counted towards increased Greenhouse Gas Reduction targets
• Encourage landscape scale, multi tenure, connectivity conservation initiatives to improve the chances of wildlife and natural systems surviving the impacts of climate change.
  

Marine Protection

• Establish a representative network of large marine sanctuaries in the South West, North West and North Marine Regions by 2012 including:
• high level protection for iconic and special areas
• adequate financial assistance for fishers who may be required to shift their operations, and
• resources for management and compliance
• Place a moratorium on new oil and gas developments in the above marine regions until marine planning and new sanctuaries are completed and in place
  

      Northern Australia: Cape York Peninsula

• Support and ensure implementation of the existing Queensland-Commonwealth Governments’ agreed ‘Roadmap’ for developing a nomination of Cape York Peninsula for World Heritage listing.
• Nominate appropriate areas of Cape York Peninsula for World Heritage listing, with community agreement and traditional owner consent.
• Provide $45 million to support cultural and natural heritage work supporting the World Heritage nomination, funding for future management of the Cape, funding for further property acquisitions and support for Indigenous conservation.
  

      Kimberley

• Move the proposed massive Browse Basin gas industrial site off the Kimberley coast and away from Humpback whale habitat
• Ensure Kimberley Indigenous communities receive the support they need independent of the location of any gas processing industry through a long-term commitment of Commonwealth income from the development of the Browse Basin gas field
• Complete National Heritage listing for the Kimberley
• Establish a network of large marine sanctuaries in Commonwealth waters to protect whales, turtles, reef systems and other marine life by 2012
• Protect the iconic Fitzroy River from proposed coal mining, dams and large scale land clearing and irrigated agriculture
  

      Northern Territory

• Prevent new uranium mines (e.g. Angela Pamela mine near Alice Springs) and protect Kakadu National Park from any expansion of existing Ranger uranium mine
• Protect the famous Daly River from large-scale land clearing and irrigated agriculture
  

Rivers and Water

      Tillegra Dam

• Publicly acknowledge the serious environmental concerns associated with the proposed Tillegra Dam, including the most recent evidence provided by Professor Richard Kingsford re the serious impacts on the RAMSAR listed wetland. Commit to a full and rigorous assessment process, which includes all the information available
• Rule out any Federal facilitation of the dam, including funding
  

      Fitzroy River

• Permanently protect the Fitzroy River in the Kimberley from proposed coal mining, dams and large-scale irrigated agriculture

      Daly River

• Ensure the famous Daly River in the Northern Territory is protected from renewed plans for large scale land clearing and irrigated agriculture

Indigenous Conservation

• $20 m for land acquisitions (with the States) for Indigenous Protected Areas, and other Protected Areas managed with Traditional Owners
• Commit $120m to create 400 new ranger positions under the Caring for our Country program
• Extend landscape-scale fire management projects with Aboriginal land managers to include all regions with significant Aboriginal lands, adding a further 200,000ha above the Northern Australia target
• Increase the capacity of the IPA program to provide an expansion of on-ground, technical and legal support for Indigenous Protected Areas
  

Uranium mining

• Reject proposed new uranium mines in WA (e.g. Yeerlirrie), the Northern Territory (e.g. Angela Pamela) and further uranium exploration in the mountains of the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in SA.
• Rapidly phase out the existing Olympic Dam uranium mine in SA and Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park