The Conservation Council ACT Region has called for more money for nature protection in its submission to the 2025/26 ACT budget.
Canberrans love our nature. We are blessed to live in the bush capital – a home to incredible and unique ecosystems, plants and animals. But our bush capital is under threat. The further spread of our city is destroying vital ecosystems, while our legal frameworks benefit profit over nature. We aren’t investing in the real money we need to protect and regenerate our biodiversity. That’s creating a crisis for our nature, with five species added to the ACT’s threatened species list since 2020 – including the iconic gang-gang cockatoo.Â
It doesn’t have to be this way. We know what it takes to protect our bush capital. At a time when climate stresses, habitat loss and degradation are leading to a deterioration of Australia’s and the ACT’s natural environment, the Conservation Council ACT calls upon the ACT Government to play a leadership role in protecting, restoring and enhancing biodiversity in the ACT region. Such environmental stewardship benefits both nature and our community by enhancing biodiversity, supporting tourism, safeguarding livelihoods and improving overall health and wellbeing.
For the 2025-26 budget we call on the Government to focus on investment in biodiversity by implementing a Biodiversity Network and increasing funding for invasive species management.Â
The Biodiversity Network
To combat biodiversity loss across the Territory, the Conservation Council’s Biodiversity Working Group and Friends of Grasslands have also co-authored a paper that outlines a key part of the solution to protecting and enhancing the ACT’s remaining natural places: The Biodiversity Network. The purpose of the Biodiversity Network is to protect remnants of natural value that are not reserved, whereby these remnants, together with those in reserve, will be unified into a single legal and management framework.
It is important that the ACT plays a stewardship role in the protection of important local species and ecosystems. Investing in maintaining high-quality urban greenspace helps build resilience against the impacts of climate change, enhance nature connectivity across the urban landscape, and deliver quality-of-life benefits to the community. Trees and shrubs provide vital refuge for wildlife and pollinators across the urban landscape and cool the urban environment.
We urge the Government to implement this proposal, with proper resourcing to manage land for biodiversity purposes across the territory.
Invasive species management
To ensure Canberra’s nature, people and culture can flourish, our urban landscapes need to host biodiverse and resilient green spaces. Biodiversity in the ACT region is under strain from invasive plants and animals. Invasive species degrade our waterways, natural landscape, habitats, biodiversity and threaten the production of food in our region. The ACT has a responsibility to rapidly respond to biosecurity threats accelerated by climate change, through sustained intervention and management of invasive plants that have been bolstered by a prolonged period of frequent rain.Â
In the 2021-22 ACT Budget, the ACT Government implemented the The Rapid Response Biosecurity Team. This was met with an investment of $3 million over four years to rapidly respond to biosecurity threats, which at the time were accelerated by recent bushfires, extended dry periods, and La Nina conditions. While it would be tempting to consider the need for this to be over, this is not the case. The ACT continues to face significant biosecurity threats, and it is essential that this program be extended, becoming a permanent part of Canberra’s management of invasive species.Â
Other priorities
In addition to this focus on biodiversity, the Conservation Council has called on the Government to accelerate the implementation of strategies for a safe climate, invest in public and active travel and provide substantive support to strengthen the ACT’s environmental and climate sector.Â
As the window to keep warming to within 1.5 degrees higher than pre-industrial average is rapidly closing, there is an urgent need for mitigation. The ACT has been leading climate action in Australia with its move to purchase all the Territory’s electricity from renewable sources. We call for the ACT to continue being ambitious by bringing forward the net zero target date as well as a push to reduce further emissions through electrification and phasing out woodburners. Â
Investing in active and public travel is crucial for Canberra’s future. A safe, accessible, convenient and comfortable active and public travel system will make our city cleaner and healthier. It is crucial to ensure the maintenance of existing active travel infrastructure and the creation of new active travel infrastructure deliver travel equity in our community.
Canberra-based Environment and Climate community organisations play a crucial role in Government strategies to reduce emissions on the pathway to net zero emissions by 2045, for a circular economy and to restore and conserve natural places in the ACT region. Despite the central role the ACT’s Environment and Climate sectors play they continue to face considerable challenges. We urge the Government to provide substantive support to strengthen the ACT’s environmental and climate sectors through sustained and substantial funding.