Biodiversity fund

Did you know that Australia spends more on a single desalination plant than it does on the nation’s premier conservation program? 

There is an urgent need to boost investment from revenue created by putting a price on pollution and removing damaging fossil fuel subsidies. This revenue can be turned into action that reverses the decline of Australian ecosystems and secures their capacity to store carbon pollution.

That’s why its good news that a new biodiversity fund will now be established as a result of Australia’s Clean Energy bills being passed into law on November 8, 2011. ACF has campaigned for the creation of a biodiversity fund for the last three years.

Biodiversity fund

The Australian Government has committed to providing funding of $946 million over the first six years for landholders to undertake projects that establish, restore, protect or manage biodiverse carbon stores.

The government has said the fund will support restoration and management of biodiverse carbon stores including: 

• Reforestation and revegetation in areas of high conservation value including wildlife corridors, rivers, streams and wetlands;
• Management and protection of biodiverse ecosystems, including publicly owned native;
• Forests and land under conservation covenants or subject to land clearing restrictions; and
• Action to prevent the spread of invasive species across connected landscapes.

Nature silently works away, day and night, producing the water, wildlife, oxygen, soils and crop pollination that produces the food Australians depend on. There is no factory or technology capable of producing so much of value at so little cost.

Australia's biodiversity

Australia has one of the worst species extinction records on Earth. In some regions up to 60% of mammals, 30% of birds and 25% of reptiles are threatened with extinction. About 50% of woodland and forest ecosystems, and 70% of remaining forests are ecologically degraded from logging.

Some of Australia’s iconic and significant ecosystems that are under threat include:

• Highly populated coastal ecosystems;
• The Great Barrier Reef (Qld), Fraser Island (Qld), Kakadu National Park (NT) and Shark Bay (WA);
• 16 internationally significant wetlands in the Murray-Darling Basin that provide $2.1 billion dollars in benefits to regional economies;
• Natural environments that generate $26 billion annually in nature based tourism; and
• The world’s tallest and most carbon dense hardwood and cool temperate rainforests.

What should the fund be spent on?

• Protection and restoration of areas of high conservation value, and natural systems of national significance;
• Degreadation prevention. Natural carbon storage, water production and purification should be protected from the outset and funds should be invested to support projects that will work at scales large enough to make a big difference;
• Revegetation of areas of high conservation value including wildlife corridors, rivers, streams and wetlands; linking private lands, national parks, indigenous protected areas and other lands and aquatic systems; and
• Preventing the spread of invasive species across high conservation value, connected landscapes.

Have a look at exactly what this fund can do to protect Australia's incredible biodiversity.

How you can support protection of biodiversity

• Like us on Facebook to keep updated on our campaigns. 
• Donate to ACF.