School of Law Research Seminar

'The Implications of Conserving Biologicial Diversity: Legal Instruments for Managing Nature on Private Land'

Abstract: With the conservation of biological diversity now recognised as the principal reason for conserving nature, the underpinning science is undermining, at both an international level and within Australia, the distinction traditionally drawn between protected areas, such as national parks, and the unprotected landscape beyond. The classical paradigm of a protected area was concerned with the protection from non-recreational human use of often isolated areas of land owned and managed by governments. In Australia, a new paradigm is emerging, with an increasing proportion of the National Reserve System located on land owned by indigenous people and non-government organisations, as government strives to meet the targets set by its commitment to the development of a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative protected area system without compulsorily purchasing land itself. At the same time connectivity conservation has evolved from a localised concern with connecting fragmented landscapes through the establishment of linear corridors to a significant conservation movement. Its objective is to maintain the functional integrity of natural ecosystems and ecosystem processes by facilitating species movement and other ecological flows, emphasising the ecosystem goods and services provided by the natural environment and the need to respond to the impact of climate change on nature. A particular concern is to link protected areas. The IUCN Environmental Law Centre in Bonn has been working on a project funded by the German government dealing with legal aspects of connectivity conservation in which I was primarily responsible for looking at policy instruments relating to private land management as well as governance issues. My paper will draw on this material, and also a case study of the Great Eastern Ranges, a connectivity conservation initiative along the east coast of Australia, looking at how the policy instruments are used in practice (also prepared for the IUCN project, in collaboration with Melissa Harvey).