Ecological Processes
2009-04-08
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The traditional approach to conservation has largely been to study and protect natural values – species, particular habitats, and beautiful landscapes. The emerging conservation framework goes beyond managing the natural environment as a series of isolated protected areas in national parks and nature reserves, to an approach that takes in the entire landscape.
It is based on protecting and restoring the “ecological processes” and connections that shape, drive and support our ecosystems and species.
Victoria’s recent environmental report cards, including the government’s State of the Environment Report, are sober reading. Forty four percent of plant species and 30 percent of animal species are already extinct or threatened in Victoria. There has been continued loss of native vegetation, increasing numbers of threatened species and exotic pests and an increasing area of land at risk of degradation.
It also seems that our changing climate, 10 dry years and extensive fires and grazing, are contributing to the decline in native birds, mammals, insects and reptiles across parts of the state. In the face of ongoing biodiversity loss, it is clear that a new approach to conservation is needed.
What are ecological processes?
Ecological processes can be defined as “the interactions and connections between living and non-living systems, including movements of energy, nutrients and other chemical substances such as carbon, and organisms and seeds (adapted from Traill 2007).
Why are ecological processes important?
Ecological processes are fundamentally important to sustaining life, and its diversity. These processes include nutrient cycling; seasonal flow patterns of rivers; dispersal of animals and seeds; local adaptations by species to changing environmental conditions; floods that cue fish spawning; ecological disturbance by wildfire, flooding and storms; and functional interactions between soils, plants and animals such as pollination, decomposition, predation and competition.
Ecological processes are also crucial to human survival and well-being, and perform functions that underpin much economic activity (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). These ecosystem services include cleansing of water and air, pollination of crops, pest and disease control, soil formation, mitigation of environmental hazards such as erosion and flooding, and maintenance of scenic natural environments for recreation.
These ecosystem services are generally not valued or are undervalued, and are taken for granted until they break down.
How do ecological processes impact on biodiversity?
The interactions and connections of ecological processes maintain populations, species, and ecosystems in many different ways. When ecological processes degrade or are destroyed, then environmental ‘assets’ or values that depend on them are also degraded, reduced or lost. This means, for example, that establishing a conservation reserve may not be enough to protect the plants and animals that live there over the long term, because essential processes that sustain these plants and animals are very likely to extend beyond the reserve.
The Victoria Naturally Alliance has undertaken projects on ecological processes in collaboration with Deakin University. These two projects are being launched on Tuesday 31 March at 6pm in the 60L Green Building in Carlton.
In the first project, a review by 20 senior ecologists led by Professor Andrew Bennett found that “the greatest potential to sustain biodiversity and evolutionary processes in Victoria in the long term will come from conservation strategies that are directed toward maintaining or re-establishing the integrity of ecological processes”.
The second project produced the report Ecological Processes in Victoria: Policy priorities for sustaining biodiversity which will be launched by Associate Professor Geoff Wescott. This report outlines an action agenda for ecological processes in Victoria.
The report found that actions which focus solely on particular species, habitats or places are unlikely to be effective over the long term unless the ecological processes which support these values are also sustained and restored. For example if we want to protect rivers and wetlands, we need ensure that flows of water are provided at the right times and places. Likewise, we need to work to ensure that fire frequency meets the needs of a range of different species.
In broad terms, priorities for protecting ecological processes in Victoria are to:
• maintain extensive areas of natural or near-natural landscapes and seascapes with relatively intact ecological processes;
• restore and reconnect terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems as far as is possible in production and settlement landscapes to sustain and restore functioning ecological processes, and;
• manage human activities and human-caused impacts that threaten ecological processes, particularly water extraction, clearing and decline in native vegetation condition, invasive species, fire, and greenhouse gas emissions.
What are the major areas where action needs to be taken?
Priority actions need to be pursued across eight major themes:
• Maintaining ecological processes in relatively-intact ecosystems
• Landscape restoration and connectivity conservation
• Climate change: threat and opportunity for ecological processes
• Sustainable rural land: commodity production in multifunctional landscapes
• Gaining and sharing knowledge for adaptive management
• Vision building, target setting and strategic planning
• Public institutions, policy and legislation
• Enhancing ecological awareness and literacy
What are the major recommendations associated with the action agenda themes?
Action agenda theme Major recommendations
1. Maintaining ecological processes in relatively-intact ecosystems
* Complete a comprehensive, adequate and representative conservation reserve system across public and private land, freshwater and marine communities by 2015.
* Manage relatively-intact landscapes to sustain ecological function, particularly in relation to ecologically appropriate fire regimes, and invasive species control.
2. Landscape restoration and connectivity conservation
* Scale up the implementation of cross-tenure connectivity conservation projects to link conservation reserves and other relatively intact environments.
* Achieve a net gain in the extent and condition of native vegetation across Victoria by 2010, and continue the net gain in subsequent years.
* Reduce the volume of water extracted from stressed river systems and deliver environmental flows to rivers, wetlands and estuaries.
* Undertake extensive ecological restoration of riparian zones as key components of connectivity conservation projects.
3. Climate change: threat and opportunity for ecological processes
* Protect and manage all native vegetation as very large, effectively permanent stores of carbon.
* Substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to mitigate the threat of climate change to ecological processes.
* Use funds from carbon offset schemes to increase carbon uptake by
1) protecting remnant native vegetation from degrading processes such as grazing, and encouraging regeneration, and 2) replanting biodiverse indigenous vegetation to enhance connectivity, not monoculture plantations.
* Reduce the stresses on ecological processes in order to enhance resilience in the face of climate change.
4. Sustainable rural land: commodity production in multifunctional landscapes
* Assist the conversion of marginal farmland to biodiverse perennial vegetation that sustains ecological processes and provides a financial return to the landowner (e.g. from carbon offsets, farm forestry, payments for ecosystem services).
* Using a range of measures, support landowners to protect and restore native vegetation, rivers and wetlands, and associated ecological processes.
5. Gaining and sharing knowledge for adaptive management
* Increase the funding for research, data management and exchange of knowledge relating to ecological processes, ecological restoration and connectivity conservation science.
* Establish a long-term ecological monitoring network to monitor and report on conditions and trends in ecosystem components and processes.
6. Vision building, target setting and strategic planning
* Legislate for a comprehensive, nested and time-bound visions and science-based targets for conservation of biodiversity and ecological processes.
* Ensure that ecological processes are fully integrated into core elements of the Victorian Government White Paper on land and biodiversity, and in the renewed Victorian Biodiversity Strategy.
* Consider all relevant ecological processes in conservation planning, including the next round of strategic plans for each catchment management authority region.
* Design and implement a marine planning and management system for Victorian coastal waters.
7. Public institutions, policy and legislation
* Reform the state’s environment-related public sector organisations to deliver ecological outcomes and establish a ‘whole of government’ approach to integrated environmental policy, planning and service delivery at statewide and regional levels.
* Review Victorian legislation to identify opportunities for greater inclusion of ecological processes.
8. Enhancing ecological awareness and literacy
* Train public and private sector leaders, managers and professionals in ecological literacy.
* Increase understanding and appreciation of ecological processes as part of community and schools-based environmental education programs.
Further resources:
Download the report Ecological Processes in Victoria: Policy priorities for sustaining biodiversity |
