Repair and protect whole landscapes
Landscapes in the ACT refl ect the interaction between people and the natural environment. City and urban development have led to serious and sometimes irreversible damage to basic ecological functioning of the landscape.
Many ACT landscapes are not resilient. Plans for future development must ensure that continuing intervention in the ecological and hydrological functioning of the landscapes does not increase the risk of reduced ecosystem services. The effect is cumulative – as the resilience is lost, more ecological services are lost and social and economic costs increase. Future ACT landscapes need to have long-term resilience, be self-regenerating and deliver ecosystem services. They need people actively engaged in better understanding and caring for them for future generations.
Priority needs to be given to conserving ecological processes of the more natural landscapes and mimicking them in highly modified areas. Even natural assets in poor condition may have enough potential and perceived value to warrant investment in their repair, particularly where they join fragments of better preserved bush to form larger-scale natural landscapes.
Landscapes at the boundaries that connect where people live with more natural places are particularly vulnerable to damage: they are the places where bushfires most threaten, weedy garden plants escape, cats prey, rubbish is dumped, and tracks made by bikes and people lead to compaction and erosion.
ACT residents appreciate the green corridors between and within their suburbs as open space, but many do not recognise that these open woodlands and grasslands can be valuable in other respects. ACT woodlands and grasslands comprise resilient communities of plants and animals evolved and suited to this region (e.g. native grasses resist erosion, persist longer under drought conditions, have good carbon sequestration values and are more fire resistant in summer than introduced grasses). The need to maintain integrity of the ‘bush’ is a strong reason for minimising the spread of urban areas, placing them carefully in the landscape, and limiting the length of their external boundaries.
Photos Micheal Schultz
Repair and protect whole landscapes - 2
This means that development decisions need to be less fragmented and incremental: just one more ecologically insensitive development is one too many. Development choices must reflect the collective choices of the whole community rather than just sectional interest groups or governments.
Decisions taken by individual citizens, and their families and diverse communities of interest need to be ecologically sound. The capacity for this to occur must be developed and given priority so that people:
- generally better understand the interaction between human activity and the natural environment
- better understand the real impacts and costs of development
- have a better appreciation of the intergenerational benefits of development decisions and the need to adaptively absorb any necessary costs
- are able to take more informed action in their daily lives and
- are able to generate creative ideas and innovation, beyond governments and their agencies.
LAND KEEPERS
Addressing the recovery of fire-damaged landscapes, enhancing biodiversity on rural and non-urban land and building strong partnerships between community and government
Land Keepers is addressing the recovery of fire-damaged landscapes, particularly in the Lower Cotter River catchment as well as protecting and enhancing remnant native vegetation and riparian zones. People across the ACT are being enlisted to work on the landscape restoration task. Over 2500 people have signed up so far. The target is 10 000 by 2010.
Land Keepers has also set up a network of community nurseries to grow locally indigenous plants for their restoration activities. Most rural landholders are also engaged in the program.
Photos Micheal Schultz