Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Honourable Speaker. I rise tonight to talk about the enormous progress that we have had on the ecosystem restoration front right across Australia during the past week. It has been fantastic to see everything that is happening, in particular this weekend. Sunday was National Tree Day, and I am sure all members would have been out and about in their local communities helping to plant a variety of trees. This coincides with World Conservation Day very appropriately as well.
Right across Lyons, there was a tonne of grassroots efforts, a lot of communities and, particularly, younger people using this opportunity to mitigate their climate anxiety by having a hands-on approach and acting in their local community. This was action that involved a lot of pride in their place, where they can look back in 5- and 10-years’ time and see a difference in their local environment and ecosystem.
Out at the southern beaches, the local Landcare group at Jacks Flats was planting. It has been 24 years since the last mass tree planting at Jacks Flat. For context, that was when Sydney had the Olympics. It is astonishing to see that what was a completely denuded and disused paddock is now an incredible and thriving ecosystem. There are bandicoot holes dug all around – it is also trip hazard – and there are birds and bats that have found habitat in the newly grown trees. Over the weekend the community there added over 400 plants to that area. That is thanks to the incredible people at Wild Seed who have some fantastic plant stock. I highly recommend them as one of the best in the state. The Sorell Council lent their support as well.
The biggest success is really bringing together that community in Lewisham, Dodges Ferry at the southern beaches for their work leading up to the event, which took almost a week just in hands-on preparation to plant that many trees.
Locally, in my township of Ellendale, we came together – a ton of landowners who have a creek adjacency to have our inaugural meeting for the local Ellendale Land Care Group to work together to fix fragmented sections of the landscape where some places have been restored along the creeks and others have not. Together, we want to work collaboratively to restore the continuity of the biodiversity right along that creek line.
Unfortunately though, there has been some potential regression in ecosystem restoration in Tasmania as well. Skyline Tier, at the back of Scamander, is Tasmania’s largest ecosystem restoration project. They are planning to restore a total of 2000 hectares of what was radiata plantation pines into thriving native forest. So far, it has been a huge success. This project has won international awards for what they have been doing: restoring and rehabilitating blue gum habitat for the swift parrot. There is a very specific kind of butterfly that only lives in sedges that are growing in this area that are being restored. This is huge good news story for Tasmania.
Unfortunately, parts of this project are now threatened to be flattened for more pine plantation. This is rehabilitating native forest, flattened for pines that are set to be burnt for hydrogen. There is a place for radiata pines in our state, absolutely, it is part of it –
Ms Finlay – That is not true. There is no permission to farm trees for hydrogen production. I think you take that off the record.
Ms BADGER – I will double check on what the company’s intention for the trees is and I will rephrase it to: the information I have been given and also shared publicly on Sunday and has been in the media, is that the company at Skyline Tier had the intention to grow radiatas and the community was informed that the intention was for biofuels.
Either way, there is a place for radiatas in Tasmania’s forestry, but it has to be in the right place. That is not in the water catchment for Diana’s Basin where this is planned. It is not in rehabilitating native forest. It is regressive to be taking down restoration projects in that area, particularly somewhere that has had a long history of continuity for restoration that only has a small fraction of land left before they have swathes of this area completely restored.
I will read what ecologist Dr Helen Morgan, who has produced a number of environmental reports for the Skyline Tier project, said:
“It is very disappointing that it is being considered a good idea when it cannot achieve beneficial or ecologically sustainable outcomes and will clearly destroy an environment that has recently been healed from previous damage. Instead of taking this step backwards by proponents, it could be showcased (Skyline Tier) as a leading example of forest restoration and management.
“Restoration work at Skyline Tier is important to protect as a shining demonstration of what can be achieved in habitat protection and rehabilitation of nature, and importantly, as one that gives people hope for the future. [TBC]
Indeed, that hope for the future is what was highlighted in the Wentworth Group of Independent Scientists Review, which came out and was announced at the National Press Gallery last Wednesday. A report six years in the making showing that restoration is possible for what is a relatively small economic input in Australia. The blueprint identifies 24 practical actions. What is often neglected when we talk about ecosystem restoration and what is highlighted through projects is actually the intangible benefits of ecosystem restoration, which are very hard to quantify, those being the social cohesion, the transition of jobs and the health benefits as well of being outside, but we know that these absolutely are something.
This is the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Restoring ecosystems plays into the 30 x 30 pledge that Australia has signed on to. Tasmania can upscale its efforts. We know we can do it for a minute amount of investment and it will bring back to us enormous environmental and social benefits.
