The future of the “critically endangered” Canberra Grassland Earless Dragon is being threatened by a proposed road at the Canberra Airport, according to the Conservation Council ACT Region.
Conservationists are greatly concerned about the survival of the Dragon as the road will slice the Natural Temperate Grassland habitat in two, placing the species in jeopardy of becoming Australia’s second known reptile extinction.
The Council said Canberra Airport Group’s proposal to build a road from Fairbairn to Majura Road in Pialligo was approved in 2009 under national environment laws.
However, in the years that followed, the Canberra Airport Group couldn’t secure the land they needed so the plans were revised.
Since the planning approval, scientists established that the population of Grassland Dragons at the site are a distinct species.
The Conservation Council ACT Region said the road project is set to proceed without reviewal of the new scientific information.
The proposal may destroy and fragment critically endangered Natural Temperate Grassland and likely be terminal for one of only two genetically distinct wild populations of Canberra Grassland Earless Dragon.
Under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the Canberra Grassland Earless Dragon is currently proposed for listing as “critically endangered”.
The reptile is recognised by the Federal Government in its 2022-2032 Threatened Species Action Plan as one of just 110 priority species for recovery.
Monitoring is ongoing at nine sites and records in 2020 show just two individual Dragons around the Airport, and in 2021 they were found at just two sites.
Elle Lawless, executive director of the Conservation Council ACT Region, said: “Canberra is home to incredible places and wildlife found nowhere else on Earth. But nature in Canberra and Australia is in trouble. The wildlife and the places we love are under threat like never before.
“Like the rest of Australia, the ACT is battling an extinction crisis. Mature trees are being removed from the landscape at alarming rates; our beloved faunal emblem, the Gang-gang Cockatoo, is endangered; and our natural areas are at increasing risk from a changing climate, habitat destruction and the pressure of an ever expanding city.
“We are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, the Environment Minister has included the Canberra Grassland Earless Dragon in her list of 110 species to be prioritised in the fight against species extinctions. To honour this commitment and maintain a chance at protecting this species, the road must be stopped, now.”
Jamie Pittock, president of Friends of Grasslands, said: “The federal government has been raging a war against native temperate grasslands despite supposedly protecting them as a critically endangered ecosystem.
“In the past few years in Canberra, the federal government has approved destruction of this habitat at York Park and at Ainslie, and proposes further development at Lawson North and Campbell Park. The new federal government has an opportunity to live up to its rhetoric for conserving threatened species – such as the Canberra Dragon – by revoking approval for this unnecessary road at the airport.
“As for the Canberra Airport Group, their standing in the Canberra community will be forever diminished if they kill the Dragon with their planned road. No amount of greenwashing could forgive Dragon killers.”
Friends of Grasslands and The Conservation Council ACT Region will be holding a public forum to take a stand for the Dragon on Wednesday 1 March 6-7.30pm at the Food Co-op Canberra.
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