The Office of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment (OCSE) recently released a damning investigation titled Close to the Edge, offering a stark appraisal of the environmental consequences of Canberra’s continued urban expansion. The report paints a troubling picture: native ecosystems are in sharp decline, biodiversity is diminishing, and current planning policies are failing to protect what remains of the ACT’s rich natural heritage.
From 2004 to 2023, Canberra’s building footprint increased by 40%. While this may signal economic growth and rising demand for housing, the environmental cost has been high. Greenfield developments (urban growth on previously undeveloped land) have led to significant losses in natural vegetation and habitat, particularly in high-conservation-value areas like Gungahlin, the Molonglo Valley, and Jerrabomberra.
Even more worrying, these developments continue despite years of reports warning of the destructive impact of such sprawl. As the report bluntly notes, “This expansion and environmental decline occurred after the 2004 Canberra Plan envisaged growth within a contained urban structure.”
Disappearing woodlands and grasslands
The ACT is home to some of Australia’s last remnants of Box-Gum Grassy Woodland and Natural Temperate Grassland – ecosystems that are now critically endangered nationally. Since European settlement began, over 95% of these woodlands have been lost across Australia. In the ACT, two-thirds of the original cover has vanished. The report stresses that “small losses of grasslands and woodlands can be described as a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ to these ecosystem types.” Of the remaining 10,865 hectares in the ACT, only 77% are within protected reserves. This leaves nearly a quarter of this ecological treasure vulnerable to further development.
Urban Development vs. Biodiversity
The investigation reveals that development from 2004 to 2023 directly impacted 30 of the ACT’s 66 threatened species, including birds, mammals, reptiles, and insects. In several urbanising areas, vegetation cover declined by more than 20%. Indirect consequences like noise, invasive species, and artificial lighting – termed “edge effects” – further degrade the remaining natural habitats adjacent to urban zones.
Despite policy frameworks and the presence of reserves, biodiversity loss is accelerating. Protected areas alone have proven insufficient. In many cases, threatened species reside outside the reserve network and face no meaningful protection.
Policy paralysis and legislative shortfalls
Perhaps the most damning insight of Close to the Edge is its critique of governance. The ACT’s legislative and planning frameworks – while extensive in scope – have failed in execution. Environmental protection is consistently deprioritised in favor of development.
Key legislation like the Planning Act 2023 and the Nature Conservation Act 2014 suffer from overlapping jurisdictions, limited enforcement, and limited implementation. The ACT government allocates just 3% of its budget to environmental and climate programs, with biodiversity protection receiving a fraction of that. As the report puts it: “It is hard to take the view that biodiversity protection is a genuine priority for the ACT.”
Offsets and artificial turf
The report also criticises over-reliance on environmental offsets. Offsets refer to land or funding set aside to “compensate” for habitat destruction. While theoretically useful, offsets are often poorly implemented, inadequately monitored, and fall short of achieving genuine conservation outcomes.
Another surprising villain – artificial turf. Increasingly common in Canberra’s newer suburbs, it contributes to heat retention, biodiversity loss, and microplastics pollution. The report calls for a total ban on artificial turf in residential settings.
Voices of the future
In a poignant inclusion, OCSE surveyed Canberra’s youth about what “one new rule” they would implement to protect nature. The students’ responses were strikingly aligned with ecological priorities. Their suggestions for principles like “developing less houses and ruining the environment” and “creating more nature reserves” underscore an intergenerational urgency that current planning processes are not adequately addressing.
Recommendations
The report includes 15 concrete recommendations for government action, including (paraphrased):
- Mapping and protecting conservation values on undeveloped and open land
- Setting a firm urban growth boundary and tightening definitions around infill development
- Refusing development applications that harm threatened ecological communities
- Mandating independent ecological assessments for development proposals
- Strengthening laws to protect mature trees and limit artificial turf use
- Separating planning and conservation powers to avoid conflicts of interest
Recurring themes are the need to prioritise avoidance over offsets, and protection over restoration. Prevention, as the report makes clear, is far less costly and more effective than cure.
The Bush Capital at a crossroad
Close to the Edge is more than a technical review – it’s a moral reckoning. It challenges Canberra to live up to its moniker as the “Bush Capital,” in practice.
Without immediate, decisive, and well-funded action, the ACT’s environment will continue to erode, and future generations will inherit a landscape stripped of the natural beauty which adorns it today.
As Dr. Sophie Lewis, ACT Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, writes in her foreword: “Maintaining the same approach and rejecting reform is – without doubt – tacit acceptance of and contribution to the biodiversity crisis.”
The question now is whether policymakers will listen.