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NSW Biosecurity framework needs sharper environment focus

JOINT MEDIA RELEASE

  • Invasive Species Council
  • Nature Conservation Council of NSW
  • National Parks Association of NSW

Environment groups have praised the NSW Government’s new biosecurity framework as a tool for modernising the state’s approach to weeds, pests and feral animals but want more detail on how it will tackle the impacts of these threats on the environment.

“These new, stronger, simplified powers will greatly improve responses to damaging weeds, feral animals and exotic diseases,” Invasive Species Council CEO Andrew Cox said today.

“Specifically welcomed is the introduction of a ‘general biosecurity obligation’.

“Under these proposed new rules everybody will be required to avoid creating a biosecurity risk if they knew or would ‘reasonably’ be expected to know it would create a risk. For example a landholder would not be allowed to deliberately plant or fail to control a well-known damaging weed.

“This extends primary industry minister Katrina Hodgkinson’s commitment last year to managing feral animals based on the successful bushfire management model and implements key parts of the NSW Biosecurity Strategy.

CEO of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW Pepe Clark welcomed the proposed framework’s flexible approach but wants to see more details included in the proposed Biosecurity Act.

“Resolving the varied and complex threats posed by weeds, pests and feral animals needs some statutory certainty rather than relying entirely on regulations and guidelines,” he said.

“There needs to be a statutory role for community, farmer and local government representatives overseeing the implementation of the biosecurity regime, just as occurs through the NSW bushfire coordinating committee.

“The environment minister also needs a clear role for dealing with biosecurity threats to our natural environment and transparency must be guaranteed.

Kevin Evans, CEO of the National Parks Association of NSW, fears the proposed framework is missing specific information about how environmental weeds will be managed and how conflicts will be resolved.

“Important reforms proposed in draft Natural Resources Commission recommendations, such as the ‘permitted list’ approach that ensures plants nurseries only sell low risk or non-weedy plants, must be included in the biosecurity framework,” he said.

“Weed management is under review by the Natural Resources Commission with final recommendations to be released any time now.

“Conflicts of interest under the proposed framework are not transparently resolved nor required to protect the environment from biosecurity risks created by minor industry or recreational interests.

“For example, recreational deer hunting is given a high priority in NSW and overrides concerns about the growing environmental and agricultural damage deer create. A preventative approach to biosecurity would ensure this conflict is more fairly resolved.”

“There will also be conflicts when government is reluctant to spent funds to address a serious public biosecurity issue.

“Public information about the proposed framework could be improved by providing more examples showing how the new regime will apply to common environmental threats. Most examples relate to the regulation of threats to the agricultural sector.

More info

NSW draft biosecurity framework >> (submissions close 27 Jun 2014)

For comment

Andrew Cox , Invasive Species Council: 0438 588 040
Kevin Evans, National Parks Association of NSW: 0457 797 977
James Tremain, Nature Conservation Council of NSW: 0419 272 254

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Feral Deer Control: A Strategy for Tasmania

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Your support to protect critically endangered and vulnerable species from extinction is vital. Together, we can ensure governments prioritise action on invasive species and protect our wildlife and iconic places.

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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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]