❓ The Minister for Environment provides an update on the Kimberley science and conservation strategy, highlighting increased funding, expansion of protected areas, Indigenous engagement, feral animal control, fire management, and visitor facility upgrades.
AnsweredQoN 212Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
KIMBERLEY
SCIENCE AND CONSERVATION STRATEGY
212. Mr I.C. BLAYNEY to the
Minister for Environment:
Can the minister please update the
house on the Liberal–National government's Kimberley science
and conservation strategy? Can he advise on the status and implementation of
on-ground works?
SCIENCE AND CONSERVATION STRATEGY
212. Mr I.C. BLAYNEY to the
Minister for Environment:
Can the minister please update the
house on the Liberal–National government's Kimberley science
and conservation strategy? Can he advise on the status and implementation of
on-ground works?
AnswerView source ↗
I will just go back in time for a second on this one. In
2008, as we headed into the then state election, the then Liberal opposition
put forward a commitment—a very, very bold commitment at that time—of
a $9 million investment in the Kimberley science and conservation strategy.
Fast-forward now from 2008 to 2015, and it will be seen that we now have a
strategy that is funded to the tune of $81.5 million. That strategy is
absolutely unprecedented and is an unprecedented investment in the protection
of Western Australia's natural as well as its cultural and heritage
assets. This strategy is delivering not only strong environmental and
conservation outcomes, but also very strong economic and social outcomes across
the Kimberley, and I will come back to some of those in just a second. In pure
national park and marine park terms, the Kimberley science and conservation
strategy is delivering more than a two-and-a-half-times multiplier of our
marine park estate within Western Australia, including Eighty Mile Beach,
Roebuck Bay, Camden Sound, Lalang-garram, Horizontal Falls and the North
Kimberley Marine Park all the way across to the Northern Territory border.
We are also establishing, and today
has been a key milestone towards the establishment of, what will be Australia's
largest national park—the great Kimberley national park—and
today, as the Premier has just announced, we have come to an agreement with the
state agreement act and tenement holders over Mitchell Plateau to continue to
progress that significant national park, and that is a key milestone for this
project. Other milestones have also included Prince Regent National Park
earlier in the strategy. It is a very impressive array of milestones and
achievements for a strategy that has been in operation for some four years only.
Other outcomes that this strategy
continues to deliver across the Kimberley include more than 200 Aboriginal
people engaging in land management activities throughout the Kimberley
annually. The strategy has already delivered some eight million hectares of
early dry-season prescribed burning, which is helping us to better manage the
late-season fire impact across the landscape, and also, obviously, its impact
on wildlife. We have been able to remove more than 21 000 feral cattle—cattle
that not only compete for and destroy habitat for native fauna, but also have
often been quite hazardous towards some of the cultural heritage throughout
some of that region. There has been a whole array of visitor facility upgrades,
including at Tunnel Creek, Geikie Gorge and the mermaid tree, plus a range of
campground upgrades. On the conservation front, another reason the Kimberley is
so significant is that it is the only bioregion within Australia that has not
had a mammal extinction since European settlement on this continent.
The scale of and the outcomes being
delivered through this Kimberley science and conservation strategy are, as the
Premier said, truly unprecedented for the Kimberley and, indeed, truly
unprecedented in an environmental sense for Western Australia, not only in
their quantum of expansion and the quantum of spend, but also in the
conservation outcomes being delivered. Today is a very big day for the
strategy, but it is only one of many milestones that we have achieved, and I
look forward to updating the house as we go forward and meet more milestones.
2008, as we headed into the then state election, the then Liberal opposition
put forward a commitment—a very, very bold commitment at that time—of
a $9 million investment in the Kimberley science and conservation strategy.
Fast-forward now from 2008 to 2015, and it will be seen that we now have a
strategy that is funded to the tune of $81.5 million. That strategy is
absolutely unprecedented and is an unprecedented investment in the protection
of Western Australia's natural as well as its cultural and heritage
assets. This strategy is delivering not only strong environmental and
conservation outcomes, but also very strong economic and social outcomes across
the Kimberley, and I will come back to some of those in just a second. In pure
national park and marine park terms, the Kimberley science and conservation
strategy is delivering more than a two-and-a-half-times multiplier of our
marine park estate within Western Australia, including Eighty Mile Beach,
Roebuck Bay, Camden Sound, Lalang-garram, Horizontal Falls and the North
Kimberley Marine Park all the way across to the Northern Territory border.
We are also establishing, and today
has been a key milestone towards the establishment of, what will be Australia's
largest national park—the great Kimberley national park—and
today, as the Premier has just announced, we have come to an agreement with the
state agreement act and tenement holders over Mitchell Plateau to continue to
progress that significant national park, and that is a key milestone for this
project. Other milestones have also included Prince Regent National Park
earlier in the strategy. It is a very impressive array of milestones and
achievements for a strategy that has been in operation for some four years only.
Other outcomes that this strategy
continues to deliver across the Kimberley include more than 200 Aboriginal
people engaging in land management activities throughout the Kimberley
annually. The strategy has already delivered some eight million hectares of
early dry-season prescribed burning, which is helping us to better manage the
late-season fire impact across the landscape, and also, obviously, its impact
on wildlife. We have been able to remove more than 21 000 feral cattle—cattle
that not only compete for and destroy habitat for native fauna, but also have
often been quite hazardous towards some of the cultural heritage throughout
some of that region. There has been a whole array of visitor facility upgrades,
including at Tunnel Creek, Geikie Gorge and the mermaid tree, plus a range of
campground upgrades. On the conservation front, another reason the Kimberley is
so significant is that it is the only bioregion within Australia that has not
had a mammal extinction since European settlement on this continent.
The scale of and the outcomes being
delivered through this Kimberley science and conservation strategy are, as the
Premier said, truly unprecedented for the Kimberley and, indeed, truly
unprecedented in an environmental sense for Western Australia, not only in
their quantum of expansion and the quantum of spend, but also in the
conservation outcomes being delivered. Today is a very big day for the
strategy, but it is only one of many milestones that we have achieved, and I
look forward to updating the house as we go forward and meet more milestones.
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