This summer is predicted to be dryer than average, and the ACT Government is applying lessons learnt from the 2020 bushfires to protect the Canberra environment.
Rebecca Vassarotti, ACT Minister for the Environment, will focus on environmental protection and conservation strategies.
“A bushfire emergency is an environmental emergency,” Ms Vassarotti said.
“The impacts of heat, drought, and bushfires have the potential to wreak havoc on the ACT’s environment and our biodiversity.
“The fight for biodiversity conservation is about more than just science – it’s about whether our crops are pollinated. It’s about whether we have food on the table.
“Global boiling continues to place significant pressure on the ACT’s natural resources, including threatened plants and animals.
“With heatwaves lasting longer, and extreme weather events increasing in severity and frequency, we need to rethink our approach to conservation and how to support our native species.
Ms Vassarotti said the ACT’s environmental experts have learnt much from drought conditions during the Black Summer Bushfires of 2019/20.
“One risk of a hot and dry summer ahead is that the ACT’s endangered native plants and animals will die out and creep further towards extinction, allowing invasive species to establish a foothold,” Ms Vassarotti said.
However, the ACT Government is building climate resilience for a variety of species and ecological communities, thanks to budget funding of $5.8 million over four years to strengthen the ACT’s biosecurity and nature conservation programs.
“We are already investigating how we can even better support endangered animals like the koala through targeted environmental support,” Ms Vassarotti said.
Earlier this year, the ACT Government announced they would reintroduce koalas to the ACT for the first time in more than two decades. Koala joeys were born at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve in September.
“Following the mass destruction of habitat across Australia, and with no known populations of wild koalas left in the ACT, the draft Native Species Conservation Plan for the koala is a crucial step in investigating supporting the species,” Ms Vassarotti said.
The environment team is also investigating how a heating climate could stop seeds and plants from growing, and how to mitigate this.
“Made possible due to our seed bank in Namadgi National Park, these studies will help us learn how biodiversity could be shifted in a changing climate, what will be effective in cultivating species, and which weeds and invasive species will need our focus,” Ms Vassarotti said.
“Unfortunately, there’s no way we will be able to combat bushfires long term if the Federal Government continues to open coal mines in a climate crisis.
“The ACT is one small jurisdiction in a world full of climate polluters. While we will always be guided by the ethos of ‘think global, act local’, it’s going to take a commitment from the Federal Government to end new coal and gas for Australia to make any real contribution towards mitigating environmental destruction.”
