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Independent review pushes stronger environmental biosecurity

Environmental invaders continue to slip into Australia, raising threat levels for our native plants and animals, but are governments finally waking up to the need for tougher environmental biosecurity?
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An independent report just released could herald a breakthrough in government awareness of environmental biosecurity.

The Intergovernmental Agreement on Biosecurity (IGAB) Review Draft Report reflects many of the points we’ve promoted through years of advocacy and spelled out in our submission to the review panel. The agreement under review is the accord for cooperation between our state, territory and national governments on biosecurity actions.

The draft report says environmental biosecurity needs to be improved, and makes a set of recommendations for achieving that, including:

  • The agreement (IGAB) should make clearer commitments to environmental biosecurity, including an explicit commitment by jurisdictions to financially support evidence-based decisions on environmental biosecurity.
  • IGAB should acknowledge Australia’s international responsibilities under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
  • A program of work to identify, plan and prepare for key environmentally invasive species should be agreed by Australia’s state and national governments.
  • New partnerships should be forged with environmental stakeholders and the community.
  • A new senior Australian Government ‘Chief Environmental Biosecurity Officer” position should be established, based in the federal environment department.
  • A new Environmental Biosecurity Committee should be resourced to support the Chief Environmental Biosecurity Officer.
  • As an option, a national cross-sectoral biosecurity research and innovation body should be formed.

Our calls for greater transparency in the system also seem to have been heard.

The report stops short of some of our goals (like establishing Environment Health Australia to promote preparedness for environmental biosecurity incursions). But the following excerpt from the executive summary shows that our hard work over many years is beginning to bear fruit:

“One of the strongest areas of debate … concerned the adequacy of the national system in addressing biosecurity risks impacting biodiversity and the environment. Incursions of exotic organisms harmful to Australia’s environment … are a regular occurrence … but … are yet to be systematically identified, prioritised and planned for. Environmental biosecurity considerations should be comparable to human health and primary production, and national arrangements need to be explicitly developed to address environmental risks”. (p. Viii)

This draft report’s recommendations go a long way toward creating the environmentally-based biosecurity system we’ve been trying to achieve.

The panel is now calling for comments on the draft before delivering its final recommendations. This is a chance to affirm the independent panel’s many good proposals, and to urge strong reforms to make Australia a world-leader in environmental biosecurity.

Make a submission now. Submissions close 27 February 2017.

More info

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The Invasive Species Council was formed in 2002 to seek stronger laws, policies and programs to protect nature from harmful pests, weeds and diseases.

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Your gift is a lifeline for nature.

Our protected areas are being trashed, trampled, choked and polluted by an onslaught of invaders. Invasive species are already the overwhelming driver of our animal extinction rate, and are expected to cause 75 of the next 100 extinctions.

But you can help to turn this around and create a wildlife revival in Australia.

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A silent crisis is unfolding across Australia. Every year, billions of native animals are hunted and killed by cats and foxes. Fire ants continue to spread and threaten human health. And the deadly strain of bird flu looms on the horizon. Your donation today will be used to put the invasive species threat in the media, make invasive species a government priority, ensure governments take rapid action to protect nature and our remarkable native wildlife from invasives-led extinction, death and destruction.

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    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]


    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]