The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

15. The evolution of landscape conservation in Australia
places ranging from potential World Heritage sites to local landscapes with remnant natural
vegetation.
In 1981, the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest living organism, was entered on the
World Heritage List, as was Kakadu with its expansive wetlands and Aboriginal art, and
Willandra Lakes, a series of former lakes and dunes containing the oldest documented human
remains in Australia. This reinforced the view that Australia’s large-scale landscapes had
international value. In 1982 the Tasmanian Wilderness, occupying one quarter of the State, was
added to the World Heritage List, despite complete opposition from the State government. A
new Federal government had won the election on this issue of protection of wilderness using
the external treaties power in the constitution and passed the World Heritage Properties
Conservation Act in 1983, making Australia the only nation then to have legislation protecting
World Heritage properties. World Heritage listing was used as an instrument to protect key
Australian landscapes, especially in those States that had previously ignored conservation.
This set the scene for some of the key elements of World Heritage management in Australia:
the emphasis on universal as opposed to local values, the emphasis on natural as opposed to
European heritage values, and the imposition of a centralist model of decision-making versus
local involvement, a trend which is now being reversed. The problem of relying solely on
external treaty power to prevent destructive land-uses is one of the reasons for the invention of
the National List of Australian heritage places. The Council of Australian Governments
reviewed the roles and responsibilities for heritage identification and environment protection,
including the major gap between World Heritage and National Estate sites in their protection
regimes. This review resulted in the Commonwealth’s new Environment Protection and
Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC), which defines environment to include Australia’s
natural and cultural heritage (see www.environment.gov.au/epbc). Amendments to the EPBC
Act, enacted in January 2004, enable creation of a National Heritage List of natural, Indigenous
and historic places with outstanding national heritage value. Under the new system, National
Heritage will become “a matter of national environmental significance” protected by the EPBC
Act. (www.deh.gov.au/heritage/law/heritageact/distictively/index.html).
In 1968, only 1.2% of Australia’s land was devoted to parks and reserves (Warboys et al.,
2001) but by 2002 this figure had risen to over 10% or 77,462,000ha managed for nature
conservation in over 6,755 protected area reserves. However, only 172 (less than 3%) of these
terrestrial reserves totalling 788,779ha are specifically classified as IUCN Category V, that is,
protected landscapes (www.deh.gov.au/parks/nrs/capad/index.html). In 2000, a new category
of Indigenous Protected Areas was established and 13 areas have been declared covering
almost 13,500,000 million hectares ranging from Ngaanyatjarra (Western Australia) covering
9,812,900ha to Chappell and Badger Islands (Tasmania) covering 1,270ha (www.deh.gov.au/
indigenous/fact-sheets/ipa.html). Many of the 13,000 places currently enter ed in the Register
of the National Estate are now covered by State, Territory and local government heritage
legislation. National parks and other protected areas have become an integral part of the
‘political landscape,’ as the result of the popular movement in urbanized Australia to save wild
places.
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