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Chapter 26 - Terrestrial protected areas of Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2014

By
Ian D. Craigie ,
Alana Grech ,
Robert L. Pressey ,
Vanessa M. Adams ,
Marc Hockings ,
Martin Taylor  and
Megan Barnes
Edited by
Adam Stow ,
Norman Maclean  and
Gregory I. Holwell
Ian D. Craigie
Affiliation:
James Cook University
Alana Grech
Affiliation:
Macquarie University
Robert L. Pressey
Affiliation:
James Cook University
Vanessa M. Adams
Affiliation:
Charles Darwin University
Marc Hockings
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Martin Taylor
Affiliation:
Protected Areas and Conservation Science
Megan Barnes
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Adam Stow
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, Sydney
Norman Maclean
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
Gregory I. Holwell
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
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Summary

Summary

Australia has a long history of establishing protected areas and they are now the cornerstones of its national and regional conservation strategies, covering over 13% of the country. There are large regional variations in levels of coverage, with most large protected areas placed far from dense human populations and away from productive agricultural land. Most of the recent growth in coverage has been driven by Indigenous Protected Areas and private protected areas, a trend that is likely to increase in the future. It is difficult to say how effective protected areas are in conserving biodiversity due to shortcomings in monitoring and evaluation, but the data that exist show that biodiversity outcomes are variable and that management effectiveness could be substantially improved. Threats to the protected area system are currently increasing with strong government pressure to allow extractive industries, such as mining, logging and grazing, and damaging recreational uses such as hunting to occur on land that is currently protected. If this trend continues, the future holds a great deal of uncertainty for Australia’s protected areas.

Introduction

For centuries people all over the world have set aside places to which they ascribe special values. The reasons for this have been many and various but they are linked by a central purpose – to protect something that humankind perceives as valuable. Over the past century, as human populations have grown and their use of natural resources has increased, so the need to protect the remaining natural areas has also grown. Formally protected areas have become the centrepiece of the global strategy for nature conservation. These are areas where human activities are restricted and that are managed with the primary purpose of nature conservation (Dudley 2008). Australia is no exception in using protected areas as the cornerstones of its national and regional conservation strategies and is a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD is an international legally binding treaty that commits Australia to achieving a number of conservation targets.

Type
Chapter
Information
Austral Ark
The State of Wildlife in Australia and New Zealand
 , pp. 560 - 581
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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