1. Audit summary
1.1 Introduction
Conserving biodiversity is core to responsible environment and
natural resource management and is fundamental to maintaining both
quality of life and economic well-being, both now and in the
future.
The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (the Act) is the primary
Victorian legislation providing for conservation of threatened
species and ecological communities, and the management of processes
that threaten the sustainability Victoria's native flora and fauna.
The Act establishes a listing process. Once an item is listed the
Act sets out a range of management processes and conservation tools
that can be implemented to protect and conserve species.
Since the Act was passed in 1988, 653 plant and animal species,
communities and threatening processes have been listed.
The objective of the audit was to review the Department of
Sustainability and Environment’s (the department) administration of
the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 and to assess how effective
the processes and actions developed under the Act have been in
preserving Victoria’s native flora and fauna.
1.2 Conclusions
The full range of ‘management processes’ and ‘conservation and
control measures’ available in the Act has not been used.
Action statements are the primary tools in the Act being used to
protect and conserve threatened flora and fauna. However, the
effort directed to listing threatened species and processes has not
been matched by effort to develop action statements, to monitor the
implementation of actions, or assess their effectiveness. The gap
between listed items and items with action statements continues to
widen.
The lack of baseline data and outcome or output performance
measures means it is not possible to conclude whether the Act has
achieved its primary objectives. The available data, which is
patchy, indicates that it has not.
1.3 Findings
1.3.1 The listing process
The department has invested most effort in listing threatened
species. However, there is duplication of processes within the
department and with the Commonwealth Government’s listing process.
The time taken to list an item, while within the three year (156
weeks) timeframe specified under the Act, continues to exceed the
department’s internal benchmark of 31 weeks. The internal benchmark
is an optimum period that requires each stage to be completed as
quickly and reasonably possible. This benchmark could not always be
met in part due to factors beyond the department’s control, such as
the Scientific Advisory Committee requiring multiple meetings to
consider a nomination.
Over 800 items have been nominated for listing and 653 have been
listed under the Act. However the department’s ‘advisory’ list (a
separate list not subject to the listing process), contains over 2
200 species of flora and vertebrate fauna. Many of the species on
the advisory list are likely to satisfy the criteria for the
‘threatened’ list maintained under the Act.
The listing process while conforming with the Act is compromised
by a lack of up-to-date scientific data and by limited stakeholder
participation. The department’s information systems relating to
conservation and biodiversity are incomplete and disjointed. Major
system development and integration projects are underway to address
current shortcomings.
1.3.2 Conservation tools
The various management processes, conservation and control
measures available under the Act to conserve and protect flora and
fauna are not being used, largely because of their perceived
complexity and difficulty of administering these provisions. The
department has relied on provisions in other environmental
legislation, strategies, policies and plans in preference to those
available under the Act to conserve and protect flora and
fauna.
While ‘action statements’ are mandatory, their development and
finalisation has been protracted. There is no time limit in the Act
for these tools to be finalised—‘as soon as possible’ is the time
standard set. At the current rate of progress, with existing
resources, it will take a further 22 years for the department to
complete action statements for the 653 items currently listed as
threatened.
1.3.3 The Act
The Act was reviewed by the department in 2002. This review
concluded that ‘the existing regulatory and policy framework for
the protection of threatened species in Victoria is in need of a
major overhaul.’ A number of recommendations to improve the Act
resulted from this review, but no amendments to the Act have been
made.
The state government’s April 2008 green paper, Land and
Biodiversity at a Time of Climate Change, acknowledges the need for
legislative reform (State and Federal) and the proposed white paper
will identify the extent to which legislative change is
required.
1.4 Recommendations
The department should:
- review the internal timeframes it sets for
listing, against the resources it applies and the processes it
adopts, to confirm they are realistic
- continue to build its knowledge-base on
threatened species, causes of their decline and how best to
mitigate threats to them; and expedite the transfer of information
held on manual files to the ABC system
- formalise its collaboration on
conservation activity with the Federal Government and seek a joint
agreement to eliminate duplication in the listing process
(Recommendation 4.1).
The department should:
- assess the resources it applies to
developing, monitoring and reviewing action statements and
establish a prioritised action plan to address the backlog of
listed items with no action statements
- include in new and revised action
statements the processes by which it will monitor progress and
evaluate the effectiveness of each initiative within the action
statement
- review the efficacy of conservation and
protection tools available under the Act
- assess whether the listing process is the
most effective and efficient means of protecting species and
communities
- develop a suite of output efficiency and
outcome effectiveness measures to monitor and assess its
conservation efforts (Recommendation
5.1).