Australia’s weed problem worsens each year. In what would be the most important reform for weed prevention in the country, each state and territory must create new laws to limit the flow of new weeds escaping into the bush by creating a list of safe plant species that can be sold and moved in each state and territory.
Why is weed reform is essential to halt Australia’s growing weed problem?
Australia’s toughened international quarantine laws, introduced in 1997, make it much harder for new weedy species to be brought into our country.
Now it’s more likely that our next big weed problems are already here, imported for gardens or agriculture before these laws required risk assessment of plant importations into Australia.
There are close to 30,000 exotic plant species in Australia, most cultivated in gardens or paddocks, more than the number of native plant species (about 20,000). About 3000 exotic species have already established in the wild and this number grows by about 20 a year. This is our source of new weeds.
In 2009 an independent review of federal laws found that the movement of potentially invasive plants within Australia is “effectively unconstrained”, and that they represent “a vast reservoir of potential future problems”. Almost a quarter of exotic plants here are weeds in other parts of the world.
Right now there is nothing to stop a nursery, say in NSW, importing hundreds of known weedy species from other states and selling them to an unsuspecting public, risking the chance of new species escaping into nearby bushland or farmland, to threaten native species and agricultural production.
Weeds are already recognised as among the top threats to Australia’s native plants and animals, and cost agriculture well over $4 billion annually in lost production and control.
Clearly, we cannot afford the spread of even more weed species already within Australian borders. We need to take action and stop new weeds in their tracks.
To do this, the Invasive Species Council is asking each state and territory to prevent new weed problems by requiring all new introductions into their states to pass a risk assessment. Only plants on a ‘safe list’ would be allowed to be sold or moved between states and territories. Some species already well entrenched would also be on this permitted list.
The Western Australian Government has been running a similar model for six years now. To begin, a list of plant species were assessed as safe, or of low risk to that state’s agricultural sectors and natural environment. When new plants need to be brought into the state they are assessed. In most cases, these are determined as of low risk of becoming weedy and added to the ‘safe list’. Many hundred of potentially weedy species have been kept out of the state.
The onus for compliance lies mostly with large plant wholesalers, who, once they understand the process, are happy to meet the requirements.
“Turn the tap off before you mop up the spill: The development of a list of permitted, non-invasive taxa … could represent the most effective and timely response to the immediate threat posed by thousands of potentially invasive and unrestricted plant species.” (State government weed policy officers1, 2006).
For the sake of both our natural environment and the economy, Australia needs to take a similar approach across the entire country, preventing the spread of weeds between states and territories, as well as different regions. Ideally the reform would be implemented across a number of states at a time, but individual states must take the lead while we are waiting to get agreement.
Western Australia has shown the way, and the Invasive Species Council is now asking the Federal Government, states and territories to act and help stop future weed invasions in their tracks through a ‘safe list’ approach to weeds. Everybody needs to play their part in weed prevention and control. We already ensure that only safe foods and toys are allowed on our shops. We need to stop selling potential weeds. Only a ‘safe list’ of plants can achieve this.
The Invasive Species Council was formed in 2002 to seek stronger laws, policies and programs to protect nature from harmful pests, weeds and diseases.
The Invasive Species Council acknowledges the Traditional Custodians throughout Australia and their connections to land and sea. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
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.
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.
