Book Chapter
How Australian legislation can consider climate change in ecological impact assessment
-
Published:2012
Citation
Lukas L. Clews, 2012. "How Australian legislation can consider climate change in ecological impact assessment", Wildlife and Climate Change: Towards robust conservation strategies for Australian fauna, Daniel Lunney, Hutchings Pat
Download citation file:
Climate change will exacerbate the suite of existing threats to biodiversity posed by human activity. While climate change considerations are currently incorporated into aspects of coastal land use planning in New South Wales, little effort has been made to include climate change considerations into the assessment of biodiversity impacts for development activities elsewhere. The legislation from which current ecological assessment procedures originate (e.g. the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act)) predates the recognition of climate change as a major threat to biodiversity and they need to be adapted to respond to climate change pressures on biodiversity. Here it is recommended that species sensitive to effects of climate change should be included on threatened species lists under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 and the EPBC Act. An assessment procedure for incorporating these species into ecological impact assessment is suggested. The ability to provide for climate change adaptation for such species through mitigation and compensatory measures is also explored.
Adam, P. 2009. Going with the flow? Threatened species management and legislation in the face of climate change. Ecological Management and Restoration, 10: 44-52.
Argrawala, S., Kramer, A. M., Prudent-Richard, G. and Sainsbury, M. 2010. Incorporating climate change impacts and adaptation in environmental impact assessments: opportunities and challenges, OECD environmental working paper no. 24, OECD Publishing
Atkinson, S. F., Bhatia, S., Schoolmaster, F. A. and Waller, W. T. 2000. Treatment of biodiversity impacts in a sample of US environmental impact statements. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 18: 271-282.
Beatley, T. 2000. Preserving biodiversity: challenges for planners. Journal of the American Planning Association, 66: 5-20.
Beaumont, L. J., Pitman, A. J., Hughes, L. and Poulsen, M. 2007. Where will species go? Improving projections of species future distributions using new climate modelling techniques. Global Change Biology, 13: 1368-1385.
Bubna-Litic, K. 2008. Ten years of threatened species legislation in NSW - What are the lessons? In: M. Jeffery, J. Firestone & K. Bubna-Litic (eds.) Biodiversity Conservation, Law and Livelihoods: Bridging the North-south Divide. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Byer, P. H., Lalani, M. J. and Scott Yeomans, J. 2009. Addressing and communicating climate change and its uncertainties in project environmental impact assessments. Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management, 11: 29-50.
Chambers, L. E. 2006. Associations between climate change and species in Australia. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 87: 201-206.
Chapron, G. and Samelius, G. 2008. Where species go, legal protections must follow. Science, 322: 1049.
Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW 2007. Adaptation Strategy for Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity 2007-2008, Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW, Sydney.
Department of Environment Climate Change and Water NSW 2010a. Draft NSW Coastal Planning Guideline: Adapting to Sea Level Rise, Department of Environment Climate Change and Water NSW, Sydney.
Department of Environment Climate Change and Water NSW 2010b. Priorities for biodiversity adaptation to climate change, Department of Environment Climate Change and Water NSW, Sydney.
Dunlop, M. and Brown, P. 2008. Implications of climate change for Australia's national reserve system: a preliminary assessment, CSIRO report to DECC & DEWHA, CSIRO, Canberra.
Elliot, M. and Thomas, I. 2009. Environmental Impact Assessment in Australia: Theory and Practice, The Federation Press, Sydney.
Environmental Defenders Office 2009a. Climate change and the legal framework for biodiversity protection in Australia: a legal and scientific analysis, Discussion paper, Environmental Defenders Office, Sydney.
Environmental Defenders Office 2009b. Climate change and the legal framework for biodiversity protection in NSW: a legal and scientific analysis, Discussion paper, Environmental Defenders Office, Sydney.
Glasson, J., Therivel, R. and Chadwick, A. 1999. Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment, UCL Press, London.
Halpin, P. 1997. Global climate change and natural-area protection: management responses and research directions. Ecological Applications, 7: 828-843.
Harris, J. A., Hobbs, R. J., HIggs, E. and Aronson, J. 2006. Ecological restoration and global climate change. Restoration Ecology, 14: 170-176.
Hawke, A. 2009. The Australian Environment Act - report of the independent review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Canberra.
Hobbs, R. J. and Cramer, V. A. 2008. Restoration ecology: interventionist approaches for restoring and maintaining ecosystem function in the face of rapid environmental change. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 33: 39-61.
Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Hughes, L., McIntyre, S. L., Lindenmayer, D. B., Parmesan, C., Possingham, H. P. and Thomas, C. D. 2008. Assisted colonisation and rapid climate change. Science, 321: 345-346.
Howden, M., Hughes, L., Dunlop, M., Zethoven, I., Hilbert, D. and Chilcott, C. 2003. Climate change impacts on biodiversity in Australia, Outcomes of a workshop sponsored by the Biological Diversity Advisory Committee, 1-2 October 2002, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.
Hughes, L. 2003. Climate change and Australia: trends, projections and research directions. Austral Ecology, 28: 423-443.
Hughes, L. and Westoby, M. 1994. Climate change and conservation policies in Australia: coping with change that is far away and not yet certain. Pacific Conservation Biology, 1: 308-318.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007. Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Contribution of working groups I, II and III to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva.
Janssen, R. 2001. On the use of Multi-criteria analysis in environmental impact assessment in the Netherlands. Journal of Multi-criteria decision analysis, 10: 101-109.
Kim, K. and Pauleit, S. 2007. Landscape character, biodiversity and land use planning: the case of Kwangju, South Korea. Land Use Policy, 24: 264-274.
Lofvenhaft, K., Bjorn, C. and Ihse, M. 2002. Biotope pattern in urban areas: a conceptual model integrating biodiversity issues in spatial planing. Landscape and Urban Planning, 58: 223-240.
Lunney, D., Matthews, A., Cogger, H. and Dickman, C. 2004. The neglected 74% - the non-threatened vertebrates - and a reflection on the limitations of the process that fashioned the current schedules of threatened species in New South Wales. Pp 145-157 in Threatened Species Legislation: is it just an Act? edited by P. Hutchings, D. Lunney, and C. Dickman. Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, NSW, Australia.
Maciver, D. C. and Wheaton, E. 2005. Tomorrow's forests: adapting to a changing climate. Climatic Change, 70: 273-282.
McAlpine, C. A., Syktus, J. I. and Ryan, J. G. 2010. Climate change and land clearing: a short note. Australian Zoologist, 35: 431-431.
McGranahan, G., Balk, D. and Anderson, B. 2007. The rising tide: assessing the risks of climate change and settlements in low elevation coastal zones. Environment and Urbanisation, 19: 17-37.
Millar, C. I., Stephenson, N. L. and Stephens, S. L. 2007. Climate change and forests of the future: managing in the face of uncertainty. Ecological Applications, 17: 2145-2151.
Moore, M. 2010. Council refuses DAs over sea level. The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 2010.
Mortberg, U. M., Balfors, B. and Knol, W. C. 2007. Landscape ecological assessment: a tool for integrating biodiversity issues in strategic environmental assessment and planning. Journal of Environmental Management, 82: 457-470.
Myers v. South Gippsland Shire Council 2008. VCAT 2414
National Resource Management Ministerial Council 2004. National Biodiversity and Climate Change Action Plan 2004-2007, Department of Environment and Heritage, Canberra.
Noss, R. F. 2001. Beyond Kyoto: forest management in a time of rapid climate change. Conservation Biology, 15: 578-590.
NSW Inter-agency Biodiversity and Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Working Group 2007. NSW Biodiversity and Climate Change Adaptation Framework 2007-2008, Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW, Sydney.
Pearson, R. G. and Dawson, T. P. 2003. Predicting the impacts of climate change on the distribution of species: are bioclimate envelope models useful? Global Ecology and Biogeography, 12: 361-371.
Pearson, R. G. and Dawson, T. P. 2005. Long-distance plant dispersal and habitat fragmentation: identifying conservation targets for spatial landscape planning under climate change. Biological Conservation, 123: 389-401.
Possingham, H. P., Andelman, S. J., Burgman, M. A., Medellin, R. A., Master, L. L. and Keith, D. A. 2002. Limits to the use of threatened species lists. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 17: 503-507.
Pressey, R., Cabeza, M., Watts, M., Cowling, R. and Wilkinson, K. 2007. Conservation planning in a changing world. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 22: 583-592.
QLD Office of Climate Change 2007. ClimateSmart Adaptation 2007-2012: An action plan for managing the impacts of climate change, QLD Office of Climate Change, Brisbane.
Rohlf, D. 1991. Six biological reasons why the Endangered Species Act doesn't work - and what to do about it. Conservation Biology, 5: 273-282.
Rookwood, P. 1995. Landscape planning for biodiversity. Landscape and Urban Planning, 31: 379-385.
Sala, O. E., Chapin, F. S., III, Armesto, J. J., Berlow, E., Bloomfield, J., Dirzo, R., Huber-Sanwald, E., Huenneke, L. F., Jackson, R. B., Kinzig, A., Leemans, R., Lodge, D. M., Mooney, H. A., Oesterheld, M., iacute, Poff, N. L., Sykes, M. T., Walker, B. H., Walker, M. and Wall, D. H. 2000. Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science, 287: 1770-1774.
Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2009. Connecting biodiversity and climate change mitigation and adaptation: report of the Second Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal.
Standing Committee on Natural Resource Management (Climate Change) 2009. Return of the ark: The adequacy of management strategies to address the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, Standing Committee on Natural Resource Management (Climate Change) Legislative Assembly, Report 5/54, Sydney.
Steffen, W., Burbidge, A. A., Hughes, L., Kitching, R., Lindenmayer, D. B., Musgrave, W., Stafford Smith, M. and Werner, P. A. 2009. Australia's biodiversity and climate change: a strategic assessment of the vulnerability of Australia's biodiversity to climate change. A report to the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council commissioned by the Australian Government, CSIRO, Canberra.
Thomas, C. D., Cameron, A., Green, R. E., Bakkenes, M., Beaumont, L. J., Collingham, Y. C., Erasmus, B. F. N., Ferreira, M., De Siqueira, A., Garinger, L., Hannah, L., Hughes, B., Huntley, B., van Jaarsveld, A. S., Midgley, G. F., Miles, L., Ortega-Huerta, M. A., Peterson, A. T., Phillips, O. L. and WIlliams, S. E. 2004. Extinction risk from climate change. Nature, 427: 145-148.
Treweek, J. 1996. Ecology and environmental impact assessment. Journal of Applied Ecology, 33: 191-199.
Treweek, J. 1999. Ecological Impact Assessment, Blackwell Science, Oxford.
United Nations 1992. Convention on biological diversity, United Nations, Rio de Janeiro.
Vos, C. C., Berry, P., Opdam, P., Beveco, H., Nijhof, B., O'Hanley, J., Bell, C. and Kuipers, H. 2008. Adapting landscapes to climate change: examples of climate-proof ecosystem networks and priority adaptation zones. Journal of Applied Ecology, 45: 1722-1731.
Vos, C. C., van der Hoek, D. C. J. and Vonk, M. 2010. Spatial planning of a climate adaptation zone for wetland ecosystems. Landscape Ecology, 25: 1465-1477.
Wale, E. and Yalew, A. 2010. On biodiversity impact assessment: the rationale, conceptual challenges and implications for future EIA. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 28: 3-13.
Wilson, E. and Piper, J. 2008. Spatial planning for biodiversity in Europe's changing climate. European Environment, 18: 135-151.
This content is PDF only. Please click on the PDF icon to access.
