Australia is facing an "environmental crisis" and its government must now act without delay, according to the lead author of a report sounding the alarm over the declining health of the nation's ecosystems and threatened species.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek says her government will make a systemic overhaul of the nation's approach to protecting the environment, which she has described as its "one go" to formulate a response that meets the challenge.
The task ahead is whether their commitment to reform the country's environmental laws and a pledge to protect Australia's 30 per cent of Australia's land and oceans by 2030 as conservation areas, and restore habitat can stave off the deterioration.
Bushfires in NSW. (AAP)
"It’s designed to reform our next steps and for us to really take a good hard look at ourselves and understand the urgency of the environmental crisis," she told SBS News.
"We are facing a situation where it is death by a thousand cuts across Australia so we absolutely need better coordination and more investment in environmental management. But we also need systems in place and data availability."
The State of the Environment report is a mandatory assessment prepared by a panel of independent scientists every five years.
It's latest findings describe the “poor and deteriorating” decline facing the environment as a result of increasing pressures from climate change, habitat destruction, pollution and resource extraction, which are acting to intensify pressure on ecosystems.
Ms Plibersek fronted National Press Club on Tuesday to explain how Labor intended to respond.
She said an overhaul of regulation and more investment was needed to protect the environment.
“What the environment really needs is a changed system,” she said.
"Without structural change we’ll be resigning ourselves to another decade of failure without the tools we need to arrest our decline.”
Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek at the National Press Club in Canberra. Source: AAP / MICK TSIKAS
Ms Plibersek said its plan to reform the country's environmental laws was then expected to become a reality by 2023.
But she has so far declined to go into detail around how the regulation will change, indicating more consultation is required to consider the response.
Australian Conservation Foundation chief executive Kelly O'Shanassy said commitment would amount to the "biggest reform to national environmental law in our history."
"I do think they should take time to do the reforms well," she said.
"But the timeline they laid out makes me nervous because every day matters. But they do need to do it well and they should take a little bit of time to get that right.
"Damage is happening to nature right now if there is anything that can be done to make sure that we are protecting the natural areas ... then that needs to be done."
The report's findings detail how Australia currently “lacks a framework” to deliver a “holistic environmental management” to integrate "disconnected" legislative and institutional national, state and territory systems.
“Better coordination of data and the introduction of national environmental standards will provide a direct mechanism for agreement between all jurisdictions, leading to improved environmental reporting at all levels,” the report said.
“Australia’s strategies and investment in biodiversity conservation do not match the scale of the challenge, and the state and trend of Australia’s ecosystems and species continue to decline.”
It also called for greater recognition of the role of Indigenous rangers in conservation efforts and said funding arrangements were inadequate to meet the needs of Indigenous land and sea management.
'We will only have one go at this'
Ms Plibersek has outlined that her government’s response intends to focus on three pillars - to protect, restore and manage the environment.
“People don't trust that the Commonwealth is protecting the environment,” she said.
"There is an almost universal consensus that change is needed."
She said this response would involve the government delivering a "fundamental reform" of the country's national environmental laws to put in place "explicit targets over what we value as a country and what our laws need to protect."
"But we will only have one go at this, so I need to make sure, that the right changes that I'm proposing and that we take people with us," she said.
The Labor government would also expand Australia’s “national estate” by setting a goal of protecting 30 per cent of its land and 30 per cent of its oceans by 2030.
It would also aim to double the number of Indigenous rangers by 2030 to 3,800 people.
Greens environment spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young has backed the need for legislative change, but also called for a stop to habitat destruction, by the minister ensuring projects posing a threat to the environment do not get approval to proceed.
“This is a code red on our environment and we need urgent action now - it’s an emergency,” she told SBS News.
“It is fuelled by the climate crisis and is now on the brink of impacting in a very negative way on humanity.”
Greens environment spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young has described the situation facing Australia's environment as a "code red". Source: AAP / MATT TURNER/AAPIMAGE
Australia's environment 'poor and deteriorating'
The report’s bleak findings include warning that “all aspects” of the Australian environment are under pressure, and many are declining.
This includes showing that land temperatures have risen by 1.4C since consistent records began - its impact evidenced by coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef.
It also details how its biodiversity is being decimated, with Australia having lost more mammal species than any other continent.
Threatened ecological communities have grown by 20 per cent in the last five years, in part fuelled by the impact of catastrophic bushfires.
Since 2016, some 202 species of plants and animals have been listed as threatened.
The previous Coalition government first received the report in December last year, but declined to release it before the election.
Liberal environment spokesperson Jonno Duniam said Ms Plibersek had failed to spell out detail on the government's plan for a "new environmental protection authority, its position on the use of coal, the phasing out of forestry, and many other crucial issues."
"Australians are looking for practical measures and sensible solutions that help our natural environment, and serious plans and programs through which these are delivered," he said.
Asked whether the report had changed Ms Plibersek’s view on Labor’s plan to cut emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, she said the commitment would remain.
“We have to keep our promise to the Australian people,” she said.
Professor Johnston said climate change was a key driver of pressure being placed on Australia's ecosystems.
"I cannot emphasise the importance of moving as quickly as possible - not only as a nation - but as a globe to reduce carbon emissions," she said.
"The environmental crisis have been billowing out for some time now and we really have run out of time."
