Australia is failing to meet international targets to protect nature in parts of the country where land clearing and habitat destruction are widespread, according to data in a major new United Nations report.
The UN report on protected areas, released at the Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties in Egypt, examines progress by countries to meet global conservation targets.
Conservation groups said the report showed that Australia was “far from meeting” international targets that require countries to develop well-connected and ecologically representative protected areas for nature.
While 19% of Australia’s total land area has conservation protections in place, this is largely due to an increase in Indigenous protected areas in inland Australia.
Important habitats in areas of Queensland and New South Wales, where land clearing is prevalent, are lacking protection, meaning Australia is not meeting its international obligation to develop a representative system of parks that protects 17% of all regions across the country.
The UN report found that Australia had expanded its network of protected areas since 2016. But it said Australia and other large countries including the US and China would still “need to designate new protected areas to improve connectivity”.
The UN data also shows that Australia is lagging significantly behind other countries in reporting on how well it is managing protected areas such as national parks.
According to the UN, only 20% of Australia’s total protected area estate has assessment measures in place to evaluate how well those places are being managed.
“Australia must lift its game when it comes to protecting habitats for our unique wildlife and ecosystems,” said James Tresize, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s policy analyst, who is attending the conference in Sharm El Sheikh.
“It has been six years since we’ve had a federal investment program for establishing new national parks. Budget cuts across the board are putting conservation outcomes at risk and management under strain.”
Martin Taylor, a conservation scientists at WWF Australia, said protecting key habitats was the most important measure that countries could take to prevent extinctions.
“Despite Australia committing to do that 10 years ago, after a brief burst of investment there is now nearly nothing invested in new protected areas,” he said.
“To make matters worse deforestation controls have been axed and forest destruction is again on the rise, putting Australia as the only developed country on the global list of deforestation fronts.”
The UN’s report found that globally 43.2% of ecoregions now meet the target for 17% protection on land, compared with 42.6% in 2016.
A spokesperson for the environment and energy department said Australia’s contribution to the targets to date “has resulted in more than 19% of our terrestrial land being under protection, however the department acknowledges that some bioregions remain underrepresented”.
“Achieving full ecological representation is challenging, particularly in areas where natural ecosystems are highly fragmented or where land is not available,” the spokesperson said.
“The department is working with reserve partners to explore alternative approaches for achieving biodiversity conservation outcomes in underrepresented bioregions.”
The spokesperson said national reports on steps taken to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity and their effectiveness were an international obligation and a submission was made every four years.
“The next report is due at the end of 2018,” the spokesperson said, adding that the department was also working with managers of protected areas to improve data collection.