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NSW invasive species plan – your opportunity to influence the future

A new seven-year invasive species plan being drawn up by the NSW Government looks good on paper, but we have a few reservations. You’ve got until October 2 to make a submission on the draft plan.
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A colony of red imported fire ants was discovered in Port Botany, Sydney, in November. Photo: Alex Wild
A colony of red imported fire ants was discovered in Port Botany, Sydney, in November. Photo: Alex Wild

NSW has drafted a new seven-year invasive species plan and is inviting submissions on it until 2 October.

We have prepared a submission on the plan that endorses most of the objectives and proposed actions. However, there are a few important missing elements. We recommend you make the following points.

Review: A review of the first NSW invasive species plan (2008-2015) analysing what was and was not achieved should be published to provide a basis for assessing reform priorities. It is also essential for engendering public confidence that these plans are meaningful.

Prevention: The focus on preventing new invasive species is strongly endorsed but this is only feasible if NSW introduces a permitted list approach to plants that only permits the introduction of new species and subspecies that have been assessed as low risk.

Foresighting: Prevention will also be assisted by conducting regular foresighting to identify emerging trends that could lead to increasing biosecurity risks.

Research: More investment in developing long-term solutions – new detection, surveillance and control methods, ecological management, and methods for motivating community involvement – is needed to arrest deterioration in NSW’s natural environment due to invasive species. Greater investment in taxonomy is also needed.

Animal welfare: Improving the humaneness of invasive species control is important in its own right but also to achieve greater community acceptance of invasive species management.

Assessing progress: The publication of a regular (five-yearly) ‘status of invasive species’ report is needed to assess progress and identify priorities for improving management.

Funding: Inadequate funding is a major barrier to effective management, so we need much greater clarity about funding needs, gaps and options. The plan should include actions to assess the resources needed to implement components of the plan and to develop supplementary funding sources such as levies.

Please provide the NSW government with your views on the draft NSW Invasive Species Plan 2015-22, which can be downloaded from the Department of Primary Industries website.

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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.

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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]