The federal government will need to drastically increase funding for nature conservation in this month’s budget if it wants to prevent further extinction of native wildlife, conservationists say.
The environment and water minister, Tanya Plibersek, announced the zero extinctions target on Tuesday as part of a revamped action plan for threatened species, prioritising conservation efforts for 110 plants and animals and 20 places.
The government has promised $224.5m over the forward estimates for a saving native species program, but environment groups and scientists say much more is required.
“If we want to get to zero extinctions – which we do – we’re going to have to see a lot more money invested along with a whole lot of other actions,” the nature program manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation, Basha Stasak, said.
“We’re going to be looking in the budget for an increase.”
In 2019 Brendan Wintle, a professor of conservation science at Melbourne University, led a paper that estimated it would take $1.69bn annually to recover Australia’s full list of almost 2,000 threatened plants, animals and ecological communities.
The paper was written before the catastrophic black summer bushfires and Wintle now puts the figure at $2bn. He said that level of funding, a fraction of the overall budget, would need to be directed to practical actions, including proper recovery plans, captive breeding programs, feral animal control and weed management.
“Australia is a country that spends $3o.7bn a year on caring for its domestic dogs and cats,” Wintle said. “We would say a nation that’s wealthy enough to do that is wealthy enough to spend $2bn a year to avoid losing its incredibly unique animals and plants.”
Gregory Andrews, a former threatened species commissioner, said at least $200m a year – instead of $224m over the forward estimates – should be spent on threatened species programs and it should be coupled with “an end to native forest logging and land clearing”.
Euan Ritchie, a professor in wildlife ecology and conservation at Deakin University, pointed to the billions in government subsidies for the fossil fuel sector.
He said announcing just 110 priority species and 20 places, along with “piecemeal” funding for their care, perpetuated a false notion that governments did not have sufficient resources to conserve all of Australia’s species and ecosystems.
“This isn’t a budgetary issue, but rather one of priorities and what governments value most and preferentially invest in,” he said.
The release of the threatened species action plan came on the same day the government announced a further 15 species, including the parma wallaby and the pretty beard orchid, and three ecological communities had been added to Australia’s threatened list.
A further four species have had their threat status upgraded, meaning they have experienced further decline since they were first assessed.
A spokesperson for Plibersek said the minister would not comment on budget items in advance of the October budget.
Plibersek said on Tuesday the State of the Environment report highlighted that the need to protect Australia’s plants, animals and ecosystems from extinction had never been greater.
She said the government was setting “the strongest targets we’ve ever seen” to try to turn around the nature crisis.
“Our current approach has not been working. If we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’ll keep getting the same results,” she said.
