Page 1558 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 31 March 2009
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Assembly last week. It was prepared by Dr Maxine Cooper, the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment. The ACT’s natural temperate grasslands are a threatened ecosystem. They are an important ecosystem, not just in the context of our natural environment here in the ACT but also nationally.
The grasslands are home to some unique species such as the grassland earless dragon and the golden sun moth. It has occurred to me that perhaps as a community we have not yet come to placing a full value on these ecosystems. I hope that this report will not only assist with their ongoing management but also raise the profile of these places in the consciousness of many Canberrans.
Too often the images that we see of the grasslands are images of degraded and dusty landscapes. Yet when they are healthy, when the threats are removed, they are beautiful places that give a hint of what this region was like in the past prior to European settlement. We are lucky as a community to live in a bush capital, but with that comes the responsibility to look after both the grasslands and the woodlands in the ACT. However, this report has identified that only 40 per cent of the territory’s native grasslands are in good condition. The other 60 per cent are either approaching a critical threshold or are already in critical condition.
Urban development has left us only fragmented areas and now these are also at risk from overgrazing by rabbits and kangaroos as well as from weed infestations and inappropriate mowing regimes. Of course, there has been much made in the media of one of the most prominent issues that challenge us in relation to the management of our grassland, that of the impact of overgrazing by kangaroos on the grasslands and the species that live there.
The commissioner has made several urgent recommendations on minimising greater pressure caused by kangaroos in the Majura Valley, Jerrabomberra Valley and Belconnen. There probably is not one member in this place that is unaware of the controversy surrounding the cull of eastern grey kangaroos at the Belconnen naval transmission site last year and the ongoing debate around the role that kangaroos do or do not play in damaging our grasslands.
However, may I just say at the outset that overgrazing by kangaroos is just one of the many threats to our grasslands, albeit a significant one. Overgrazing is also happening by rabbits, cattle and sheep and we need to ensure that these threats are also managed effectively. However, the sad situation in regard to kangaroos that perhaps does not apply to the other overgrazing species is that we continue to be challenged about how to remove the threat in a way that is sensible, sensitive and part of a long-term management framework.
The Greens are pleased that the government has, at last, pulled together a comprehensive management plan for kangaroos that hopefully will avoid, or at least minimise, the requirement for large annual kangaroo culls, something that most of us find distasteful at best and highly disturbing at worst. I have had much information presented to me over the past few months from both sides of the debate about whether to cull or not to cull and still I have not managed to find a solution whereby we can prevent culling while preserving the value of our precious grasslands.
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