The adequacy of the existing reserve system for the protection of freshwater ecosystems

Janet Stein

Fenner School of Environment and Society

The National Reserve System (NRS)

• 9,000 reserves • 11.64% of the land

area (90 million ha) • 8.4% IUCN class I to

IV strict protection for nature conservation

• IBRA planning framework Priority regions for

new reserves 12.6 million ha added

2002 to 2006

Source: CAPAD 2002 & 2006 (Department of the Environment, Water and Heritage and the Arts )

The National Reserve System and the conservation of Australian riverine ecosystems

1. Does the NRS provide a comprehensive and adequate protected area system for river and stream ecosystems? representation of rivers and river types (combined

biogeographic / river landscape classification) as surrogate river ecosystems, replication

2. Is IBRA a suitable planning framework for rivers and streams? have new reserves added since 2002

improved the level of protection of rivers and river ecosystems?

Protected streams and basins

Entire river systems rarely protected

4 basins with area >500km2 protected from source to outlet

Proportion of drainage basin in an IUCN class I to IV protected area

Davey RiverOld River

Marangarrayu (West Alligator) River

Mason Gully

Topographically defined drainage basins

Length of protected stream

Total length of stream within a reserve: 271,000km (9.2% of 2.9M km at map scale 1:250,000)

225,000km (7.6%) in an IUCN class I to IV reserve

Between 2002 and 2006 • extra 32,000km (+ 13.4%)• extra 17,000km IUCN I to IV

(+8.4%)

Protected rivers and streams

Medium size streams (creeks) under represented

Much of reserved length potentially threatened by major instream barriers and/or has unprotected headwater sections

New reserves not fully protecting streams

Comprehensively protecting riverine ecosystems?

No national inventory of river ecosystems• biogeographic / river landscape classification maps surrogate ecosystems

Biogeographic classification: TNC/WWF Freshwater Ecoregions of the World

• reflect the effects of historical processes that limit the pool of species within a river

River Landscape classification: River Environment Types (Stein,2007)

• describe associations of environmental factors (climate, topography, geology etc.) that drive the pattern of flow, channel morphology, substratum, temperature and mineral nutrients that collectively define the physical habitat template of stream ecosystems

Freshwater Ecoregion/River Environment Types represented in the NRS

(IUCN I to IV protected area)

Combined classifications: 13,500 types• majority

unrepresented

Trend improving• 762 additional

types sampled in 2006

• 590 more types with greater than 20% protected length

Freshwater Ecoregion/River Environment Types represented in the NRS

(with protected upper catchment/no dams up or downstream)

Little improvement if stricter criteria for protection• >80% types still

not protected

“Rare” types• ~50% types <

10km total length

• artefacts?

Freshwater Ecoregion/River Environment Types represented in the NRS

(protected upper catchment/no dams, total length > 10km)

70% not protected

< 7% types achieve minimum target 20% protected length

Assessing adequacy: reservation targets

TARGET = 20% + ( 10% * NR ) (Modified after Pressey et.al 2004)

Where:

TARGET = reservation goal as percentage of River Type (length)

ii

i

typein length stream total theis L

typeany of length stream totalmaximum theis L

where

max

max

max

L)L – (L

Rarity) (NaturalNR

Combined ecoregions/river environment types : progress towards target

Combined ecoregions/river environment types : progress towards target

(protected upper catchment/no dams downstream)

Combined ecoregions/river environment types : proportion of undisturbed stream length remaining

required to achieve targets

River Disturbance

Index (Stein et al 2002)

summarises potential

impact of human

activities:

• instream (dams,

weirs, levees, flow

diversions)

• catchment (landuse,

point sources,

logging, settlement,

infrastructure)

Adequacy: Replication

Numbers of ecoregion/river environment types represented in a protected area in more than one drainage basin

Number of types 2002 2006

Represented in NRS at least once

(% of 13,515)

8,352

(62%)

9,114

(67%)

Represented in NRS from > 1 drainage basin (% of 7,198)

2,197

(31%)

2,336

(32%)

Representation of threatened and endangered ecosystems

Total no.

No. types represented in an IUCN class I to IV

protected area

2002 2006

Threatened 137 48 53

Endangered 59 18 23

Status assigned using NRS criteria developed for forest types

Threatened: < 30% original extent• River Disturbance Index

threshold used to identify extant examples

Endangered: < 10% original extent

Limitations and uncertainties

Preliminary results-opportunities for improvements• River Environment Types

characterization of landscape processes data quality and consistency

• Biogeographic classifications for different functional groups

• Nested assessments: continental->regional -> catchment Incorporate biological data Spatial surrogates for critical processes (hydrological,

geomorphological, ecological and evolutionary)

• Measuring adequacy

Moving beyond simple percentage targets and the degree of replication

Conclusions

• The NRS does not provide a comprehensive and adequate protected area system for Australian rivers and streams for some river ecosystem types few remaining options

• Protecting entire catchments will be difficult a range of complimentary “off-reserve” protection measures

needed

• IBRA planning framework has not produced a substantial improvement in the comprehensiveness or adequacy of the NRS for rivers and streams (despite a large investment in new reserves) Not recognizing threatening processes occurring outside of

protected areas

% land area protected not a good indicator for river ecosystem protection

Thank you