Sustaining the Bush Capital
Canberra is a special place – being both a designed city and the national capital of Australia. Its site was chosen for its natural advantages – its good water supplies, land suitable for development and a natural backdrop of hills and mountains that are aesthetically pleasing.
Walter Burley Griffin’s original intentions continue to guide overall development, particularly in the parliamentary triangle, principal avenues and wooded urban hills. 1.
Canberra is also iconic. Its history and inland landscape setting – city and urban streets imposed on and interspersed with open grass and forested land (‘bush’), rivers, creeks and lakes – define it as the ‘bush capital’. Many Canberrans have developed a strong sense of place with the city and its environs. They also understand much more than previously about the impact that sprawling urban design and lifestyle choices can have on natural resources.
Canberra’s population and urban footprint has grown far larger than originally planned or imagined. As a consequence, the condition of the ‘bush’ that surrounds and intersects the city is deteriorating. The ‘bush’ in ‘bush capital’ is at risk.
The bush at risk does not consist of just the trees on the hills and mountains around the city. In the context of the bush capital and this natural resource management (NRM) plan, ‘bush’ includes all the natural assets of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) – its upland forests, woodlands and grasslands, soils, and waterways; and the organisms living in its landscapes.
These natural assets depend on each other for their health and long-term survival. The bush capital will only live up to its iconic status if all its natural assets are also in iconic condition.
This plan defines the natural resources of the ACT and brings together the aspirations for their retention in the landscape. It also links the future of natural resources to the people who live with them, who benefit from them, and who take care of them on behalf of all Australians.
- Roger Pegrum The bush capital: how Australia chose Canberra as its federal city 1983, National Capital Authority The Griffin Legacy 2004
Sustaining the Bush Capital - 2
Two natural assets that are under stress and need concerted attention if they are to measure up to Canberra’s iconic status are Lake Burley Griffin and its principal source of water, the Molonglo River, and the region’s lowland woodlands and grasslands.
Lake Burley Griffin and its principal source of water, the Molonglo River, are in poor ecological health 2. Both have high sediment and nutrient levels transported from land higher in the catchment that has been modified for farming, grazing, mining and forestry. High sediment and nutrient levels have encouraged and favoured alien fish species such as carp in the lake and algal blooms are common in the warmer months.
Although the Australian Government makes significant investments in the buildings and grounds of the parliamentary triangle, this is not matched by similar expenditure on the Mnatural assets at its centre (e.g. Lake Burley Griffin).
The lowland open woodlands and grasslands of the ACT favoured for agriculture in the 19th century and more recently for urban development are now seriously depleted. They continue to be depleted as the city expands to meet demand for housing.
Converting woodlands and grasslands into social and economic assets (new suburbs, larger houses, more amenities) has been generally considered a necessary tradeoff against their loss. However, these natural assets are a limited, non-renewable resource – few are increasing; most are diminishing, in poor health or disappearing. It is time to set limits, particularly where feasible alternatives still exist. For example, the density of Canberra’s population within existing boundaries can be increased – European cities have an urban population density double that of Australian cities and are still attractive places to live and visit.
- NLWRA 2002, Australian Catchment, River and Estuary Assessment 2002.
Sustaining the Bush Capital - 3
Ecological footprint
The average Canberran cast an ecological footprint of 8.5 global hectares (gha) on the Earth’s landscape 3. For a population of 311 800, as it was in 2004 when the footprint was calculated, this amounts to a total area of 2.65 million gha, or roughly 11 times the area of the ACT. It is a concern that it is growing (it has increased 15% since 1999) and that it is 17% larger than the average Australian footprint.
A measure of the sustainability of resource use and subsequent pollution expressed as the total amount of land (hectares) needed to support a community’s lifestyle. It includes the energy consumed in producing goods and the land needed to grow food, harvest water and sequester greenhouse gases produced by people’s lifestyle choices. It also takes account of actions taken to reduce emissions and enhance the environment.
An ecological footprint measures the area of land that is required to provide our food, clothing, housing, roads, freshwater, manufactured goods and energy, and to absorb our carbon dioxide emissions. Only 1.8 gha of bioproductive land are available on Earth for each person; Canberrans average of 8.5 gha is not sustainable at the global level.
Given the small area to large population of the ACT, the ecological footprint of the ACT must be considered at the local and regional level. The main ways for reducing the ACT’s ecological footprint are to reduce:
- consumption of goods and services brought into the ACT
- use of non-renewable energy and
- the occupation and use of land.
Tighter limits on urban expansion will increase sustainability of energy and water use as well as conserving biodiversity. The ACT Government has recognised this in principle in the Canberra Plan and the Climate Change Strategy, but without applying more specific limits on the growth of the physical size of urban Canberra it will be difficult to reverse or make gains on the current trend.
an interconnected nature reserve
within and around the city.
Photo Sarah Ryan
- Data from The 2003-4 ecological footprint of the population of Canberra, Centre for Integrated Sustainability Analysis, University of Sydney 2008.