Discussion paper:Assessing the importance of

Australia’s aquatic ecosystems

Paper prepared for the Department of the Environment and Water ResourcesCanberra, Australia

ByOnlyOnePlanet Australia

PO Box 106Hampton Victoria 3188

Authorship:Jon Nevill, Max Finlayson (research)Bill Phillips, Tim Doeg (peer reviews – Appendix 17)Jessemy Long (Appendix 10 – a Tasmanian case study)Josie Carwardine and Bob Pressey (Appendix 18 – a systematic approach)Corresponding author: Jon Nevill 0422 926 515, jon_nevill@yahoo.com.au.

Version 1.110 August 2007

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Copyright:Department of the Environment and Water Resources, Canberra.

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Executive summary:

The purpose of this paper is to: propose a set of principles to guide the selection of criteria for the identification of

high conservation value aquatic ecosystems (HCVAEs); propose a set of criteria for discussion; propose the use of criteria for the classification of importance; provide a background for these criteria by a brief identification, analysis and critique

of existing approaches, including a discussion of ecosystem integrity; and consider the value of a more rigorous long-term approach to assessing importance,

based on a comprehensive national inventory of inland aquatic ecosystems.

Six guiding principles are listed, supplemented by three additional principles from New Zealand’s Waters of National Importance project (WONI). Of these nine principles, the second of the WONI principles is of particular interest. In essence, this principle states that a list of nationally important ecosystems should contain at least one example of every distinct ecosystem type.

While this is an important concept (systematic complementarity, on which reserve network design is partly based) its use depends on the availability of a national inventory of aquatic ecosystems, including lentic, lotic, subterranean and estuarine systems. Although a considerable amount of Australian data has been collected (with Tasmania, Victoria and NSW having reasonable coverage) a comprehensive national inventory is not currently available. Subterranean ecosystem data at a national scale is a notable gap.

The paper recommends that actions to develop a national ecosystem inventory should be supported, with the long-term goal of using a systematic approach (perhaps modelled on the WONI project – Appendix 15) to establish ecosystem importance.

However, in the interim, an approach based on traditional criteria is recommended. Seven core HCVAE identification criteria are proposed, largely based on existing usage:

Criterion 1: The ecosystem and its catchment is largely undisturbed by the direct influence of modern human activity.

Criterion 2: The ecosystem is a good representative example of its type or class within a bioregion or sub-bioregion.

Criterion 3: The ecosystem is the habitat of rare or threatened species or communities, or is the location of rare or threatened or significant geomorphic or geological feature(s), or contains one of only a few known habitats of an organism of unknown distribution.

Criterion 4: The ecosystem demonstrates unusual diversity and/or abundance of features, habitats, communities or species.

Criterion 5: The ecosystem provides evidence of the course or pattern of the evolution of Australia’s landscape or biota.

Criterion 6: The ecosystem provides important resources for particular life-history stages of biota.

Criterion 7: The ecosystem performs important functions or services within the landscape (e.g., refugia, sustaining associated ecosystems).

Differences of opinion:There are many complexities in approaching the issue of assessing ecosystem importance. No single approach is clearly ‘right’. The paper’s lead authors, Jon Nevill and Max Finlayson, take an approach closely aligned to current practice. They recommend that ecosystems of international importance be identified using Ramsar criteria, and that ecosystems of national

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importance be identified using Directory of Important Wetlands of Australia (DIWA) criteria. Under their proposal, ecosystems of regional importance would be identified using the seven new HCVAE criteria, applied using appropriate (to-be-developed) guidelines.

Difficulties in this approach are discussed, and it is suggested that addition of an eighth criterion, mirrored in both the DIWA and HCVAE criteria, could solve some of these problems.

At this point Tim Doeg, a peer-reviewer, has taken a markedly different approach. Doeg’s recommendation is simple: the seven (or eight) new criteria should be used to identify all three groups: those significant at the international, national and regional levels. What is required in this case is a set of guidelines which provide three different interpretations, appropriate to the three different importance levels.

This would provide a more coherent approach, logically speaking, however at the expense of changes to current use of Ramsar and DIWA criteria. Ramsar criteria currently support the Ramsar provisions of the Environment and Biodiversity Protection Act 1999, while DIWA criteria lists are used as a statutory referral trigger in Queensland, and possibly other States.

The second peer-reviewer, Bill Phillips, also takes a different approach to the problem caused by the similarity of the three criteria sets: Ramsar, DIWA and proposed HCVAE. Instead of recommending the expansion of the DIWA and HCVAE criteria (like Nevill & Finlayson), Phillips recommends contracting the Ramsar criteria.

Phillips supports some of the report’s closing comments on the way forward, where recommendations are made specifically regarding the use of consultant expertise in inventory development and systematic planning. According to Dr Phillips:

For this initiative to succeed it is vital that it be advanced by a mix of experts; from both within and outside government. It must be under an independent leadership group in order to overcome ‘States rights’ and parochialism factors that have made this agenda problematic to advance in the past. It must also move away from being seen as an initiative of the National Reserves System; meaning, dominated by people with expertise in (terrestrial) park management. While these skills are part of what’s needed, they need to be balanced by experts from aquatic science and management realms.

There are also differences of opinion regarding immediate application of a systematic approach to importance identification. While acknowledging the value of a systematic approach to establishing importance priorities, Nevill & Finlayson argue for the adoption of a traditional criteria-based approach (above) as an interim measure, pending the availability of sufficient comprehensive data to support a systematic approach.

Josie Carwardine and Bob Pressey, in a commissioned appendix (which was unfortunately not available at the report deadline date of July 31) argue for the immediate application of a systematic approach to establishing importance priorities. Their work (Appendix 18) supports earlier comments by Janet Stein (Appendix 13).

Unresolved issues:The discussion paper introduces the concept of ecosystem integrity, following long-standing use of this concept by the Canadian Heritage Rivers System. Suggestions for a three-way scale of integrity are developed in Appendix 5, with recommendations that the concept be used in developing guidelines for the application of the proposed HCVAE criteria.

Both Doeg and Phillips comment on the issue of ecosystem integrity, and support its use. Phillips comments on the importance of maintaining connectivity (in particular) between aquatic ecosystems, and sees major problems where integrity is compromised by restrictions on flows of both water and organisms. He suggests the issue should be part of the criteria determination process. Doeg also comments on the importance of the integrity issue, noting

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that fuller exploration of the concept, and the proposed integrity criteria in Appendix 5, would have been useful. These issues will need examination in future discussions.

There are at least two important issues which are not thoroughly canvassed in the 13-page discussion paper:

Firstly, how far away is a national aquatic ecosystem inventory? The paper assumes it is some years away. The closer it is, the less need there is for an interim approach to HCVAE identification. Janet Stein (as noted above) in a comment quoted in Appendix 13, argues that a start on a systematic approach could be made immediately, at least for lotic ecosystems.

Secondly, how many levels of importance are in fact useful? The paper assumes three levels are useful: international, national, and regional. The use of importance levels is considered in Appendix 5 of the discussion paper, and in the Discussion, but only briefly. If a single level – national – would meet all critical uses, then moving towards a quantitative systematic approach (such as that used in WONI) looks more straightforward, and thus more attractive. Can it be argued that current use (eg: the EPBC Act, referral triggers mentioned above, and non-statutory landuse and resource planning) could be satisfied with a single importance level?

Both these questions are important for the reader to consider in weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the discussion paper’s recommendations.

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Discussion paper:Assessing the importance of Australia’s inland aquatic ecosystems

OnlyOnePlanet Australia 10 August 2007PO Box 106 Hampton VICTORIA 3188. Ph. 0422 926 515

Abstract:Identification criteria for high conservation value aquatic ecosystems (excluding marine ecosystems) are discussed, relating to ecosystem value and integrity. Underlying principles guiding choice of criteria are listed, and seven core criteria are proposed. Separate appendices outline both ecosystem classification approaches (at the most basic level - Ramsar) and importance classification approaches, as well as summaries of key examples. A four-tiered classification of importance is recommended, covering significance at international, national, regional and local levels. Recommendations are made for the inclusion of an irreplaceability criterion to DIWA and HCVAE criteria sets, and for the development of guidelines on the application of the identification criteria, largely thorough an interstate experts workshop. This overall approach should however be seen as an interim measure. Development of a national freshwater ecosystem inventory, underpinned by flexible ecosystem classification methods, is recommended as a priority. A comprehensive inventory would provide the basis, in the long term, for a more rigorous systematic approach to establishing importance, such as that taken in New Zealand (discussed in an Appendix).

Contents:Abstract:.............................................................................................................................. 6Introduction:.........................................................................................................................7Basic principles:................................................................................................................... 7Criteria for the identification of high conservation value aquatic ecosystems:.....................9Rationale of proposed identification criteria:......................................................................11Application of identification criteria:....................................................................................14Classification of importance:..............................................................................................14Discussion:........................................................................................................................ 15Summary and conclusion:.................................................................................................18Recommendations:............................................................................................................18

Appendix 1. Principles for the conservation & management of freshwater ecosystems. .20Appendix 2. Ramsar criteria and criteria guidelines.........................................................22Appendix 3. Directory of Important Wetlands of Australia (DIWA) criteria.......................29Appendix 4. Canadian Heritage River System selection principles and guidelines..........30Appendix 5. Value, integrity and importance criteria........................................................32Appendix 6. Ramsar classification for wetland type.........................................................37Appendix 7. Inventories of freshwater ecosystems..........................................................40Appendix 8. Australian approaches to waterway assessment.........................................46Appendix 9. Wetland values (ecosystem services) generic list........................................54Appendix 10. Conservation of Freshwater Ecosystem Values Project, Tasmania............56Appendix 11. Australian Wild Rivers:................................................................................59Appendix 12. Australia’s protected rivers:.........................................................................61Appendix 13. Absolute and relative importance scales:....................................................64Appendix 14. The Environment and Biodiversity Protection (EPBC) Act 1999:................68Appendix 15. The NZ ‘Waters of National Importance’ project.........................................71Appendix 16. Victoria’s Heritage Rivers program.............................................................78Appendix 17: Peer reviews:..............................................................................................80Appendix 18: A systematic conservation planning approach:...........................................88References:....................................................................................................................... 92Endnotes:......................................................................................................................... 100

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Introduction:The purpose of this paper is to:

propose a set of principles to guide the selection of criteria for the identification of high conservation value aquatic ecosystems (HCVAEs);

propose a set of criteria for discussion; propose the use of criteria for the classification of importance; provide a background for these criteria by a brief identification, analysis and critique

of existing approaches, including a discussion of ecosystem integrity; and consider the value of a more rigorous long-term approach to assessing importance,

based on a comprehensive national inventory of inland aquatic ecosystems.

Note that the words ‘significant’ and ‘important’ have equivalent meanings as used in this paper. ‘Freshwater’ is used in a broad sense to include all inland aquatic waters, both above and below ground, fresh or salty. ‘Conservation’ excludes cultural and historical values, and is limited to natural (ecological and geological) values. ‘Wetland’ is used in the wide (Ramsar) sense of ‘wet land’ – broadly encompassing most aquatic ecosystems.

Why is it necessary to identify HCVAEs, and why should we establish a scale of importance within HCVAEs?

The conservation of biodiversity, including aquatic biodiversity, requires the protection of representative examples of all major ecosystem types (especially those vulnerable to degradation) coupled with the sympathetic management of ecosystems outside those protected areas. This concept is a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation1. Australia is committed to the comprehensive and adequate reservation of representative ecosystems. Australia is also committed to the conservation of important ecosystems outside the reserve system – across the landscape. We apply a sliding scale of protection, with the most intensive protection targeted at the most important conservation assets.

HCVAEs can be assigned importance, for example at international, national and regional significance levels. While we might expect most of the international sites to receive protection through protected area status (reservation), most of the regional sites might be protected by wider landuse planning and natural resource management (NRM) provisions. To apply this sliding scale, we need to know which assets are most important, and the designation of significance levels is a vital tool through which this is may be achieved (Appendices 5 &13).

It should be emphasised that such importance criteria themselves do not directly address issues of the selection of protected areas, or the design of protected area networks; in the context of this paper importance ratings are primarily tools for resource and landuse planning. A reserve system, on the other hand, must be based on complementarity.

Basic principles:Considerable attention has been given to the matter of principles underpinning the conservation and management of freshwater ecosystems. Several important references have developed and listed sets of principles, and these are referenced in Appendix 1.

Here, however, we are interested only in principles to guide the selection of criteria for the identification of HCVAEs. These are a small sub-set of the wider lists referenced in Appendix 1. The proposed principles draw on these more general principles, and are set out below:

1. Hierarchical conservation tools:A hierarchical approach needs to be applied to ecosystem protection. Within this approach high conservation value ecosystems need to be identified and afforded special protection. However, these ‘jewels in the crown’ ultimately depend on a healthy landscape, and measures must be taken to protect the composition and function of natural and semi-natural ecosystems across the countryside. Degraded ecosystems need to be prioritised for restoration.

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2. Ecosystem inventories:In a world of limited resources and increasing ecological threats, a strategic approach to ecosystem protection offers cost-effective outcomes. Experience in asset management suggests that effective management depends on knowledge of the value, location and condition of assets, as well knowledge concerning threats to such assets. In an ecosystem context, Australia needs a national inventory of aquatic ecosystems, containing information on value, importance and condition. The building blocks for such an inventory are available (Appendices 7 & 8). Such inventories supply crucial information for natural resource management and land use planning programs.

3. Identification criteriaCriteria are needed to enable the identification of HCVAEs, within the context of a national ecosystem inventory. Criteria are also necessary to enable ranking of importance within such an inventory. Approaches have been developed and used, both overseas and in the Australian context (Appendices 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 15, and 16).

4. Criteria designCriteria need to be based on widely accepted approaches. Criteria need to be sufficiently general to apply to aquatic ecosystems in the major ecological categories of lentic2, lotic3, subterranean4 and estuarine. Criteria should ideally be transparent, justifiable and replicable, and based on measurable attributes where possible. Where qualitative approaches must be taken, application guidelines must be developed and applied (see Principle 5 below & Appendix 2). Criteria must take into account knowledge of ecological function, and widely accepted human values. Criteria should be able to differentiate between sites of international, national and regional significance. Where long-standing criteria are in use, changes should not be made without strong reason.

5. Criteria, and guidelines for the application of criteriaIdentification criteria need to be kept conceptually simple by framing at a high level of generality. Selection criteria need to be robust and stable, and not subject to frequent review. However, due to the complexity of the issues involved, guidelines on the application of criteria are necessary, and it is within the context of such guidelines that issues of detail (such as how the values listed in Appendix 9, for example) should be addressed. Such guidelines should be subject to review.

6. International responsibilitiesWhere practical, criteria should be compatible with (and supportive of) international reporting frameworks, such as those of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Criteria should support programs aimed at fulfilling these commitments.

Principles used in the NZ Waters of National Importance project:Chadderton et al. (2004:12), in a report by the New Zealand Department of Conservation, describe the logic behind the identification of high conservation value aquatic ecosystems within the broader Waters of National Importance project. Their discussion takes the question of key principles to a finer resolution than the broader principles set out above:

Here we identify the set of nationally important water bodies for biodiversity protection by combining environmental and biogeographic frameworks with information about the distribution of threatened species, and communities, and a range of human pressure variables that collectively indicate the naturalness of the system. If representative and ecologically viable units of the full range of environments and species within each biogeographic units are protected, then it should be possible to conserve a full range of what remains of New Zealand’s freshwater biodiversity for future generations. Successful conservation of this range will at least set a base level at which the decline in our natural freshwater biodiversity may be halted.

Our approach is based on the following principles:

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The least disturbed waters have retained most natural biodiversity and are therefore the highest priorities for protection if further loss is to be minimised.

All [wetland] environment types or hydro-classes must be represented among those protected, in order to retain the full range of natural habitats and ecosystems.

Remaining threatened native species or community types, where known, also need to be protected, so that viable populations of all indigenous species and subspecies can be maintained.

This approach underlines the importance of criteria related to disturbance, representation, and special values (see discussion below) and emphasises a systematic approach incorporating complementarity (the second principle above).

The NZ project’s basic approach was to define “national importance” (in the context of freshwater biodiversity) as involving the identification of sites comprising a minimum area that could protect at least one example of every identifiably distinct freshwater ecosystem – allowing that such a list would be enlarged if necessary to include habitats of endangered species.

However, in practice this definition produced a list which was unacceptably long when assessed against judgements about what is likely to be politically feasible, especially with regard to rivers. Chadderton et al. (2004) stated that to capture 100% of distinct river system types would require a major expansion of the identified areas, so compromises were suggested to reduce the number of sites and their total area (Appendix 15).

There is insufficient direct data of biodiversity in NZ to allow full characterisation of a minimum set of areas necessary to achieve comprehensive protection of biodiversity. This situation is typical globally, and is certainly the case in Australia as well as NZ. As is usual, biodiversity surrogates were used in the Chadderton report.

The NZ approach (like the somewhat similar CFEV project - Appendix 10) has much to recommend it, in terms of logic and science. It specifies a scientifically-defensible goal, and sets out to achieve it using a comprehensive examination of national ecosystems. Selection rules are transparent, and quantitative indicators are used wherever possible (Appendix 15).

Although insufficient data at a national scale is available to apply this approach to Australia, this sort of systematic and comprehensive approach should remain our long-term goal.

Criteria for the identification of high conservation value aquatic ecosystems:

Criteria for subterranean ecosystems:Australian subterranean aquatic ecosystems and other groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) have been largely neglected by scientists and by planning frameworks. Biodiversity in some Western Australian aquifers is high by world standards (Humphreys and Harvey 2001). The stygofauna of the limestone and calcrete ‘underground wetlands’ of the western half of Australia are little known outside the specialist scientific group who study them, despite their fascinating links to our long geological history as both evolutionary and distributional relicts (Humphreys 2006). Many species are confined to a single cave system or karst area (Eberhard and Humphreys, 2003).

These areas need special protection until more is known about the values and distributions of stygofauna, troglofauna, and the ecosystems in which they live. Criteria Three and Five (below) has been worded to provide for the inclusion of these locations in any list of high conservation value aquatic ecosystems. Appendix 5 proposes integrity criteria for subterranean ecosystems.

Australian estuary assessments:Several assessments have been made of estuaries at State and national levels. Typically, natural value is assumed to correlate with disturbance. For example, the National Audit’s

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estuary assessment (see further discussion in Appendix 7) assigned the highest natural value as ‘near pristine’.

An estuary was classified as near pristine if it had:a high proportion of natural vegetation cover in the catchmentminimal changes to hydrology in the catchmentno changes to tidal regimeminimal disturbance from catchment land useminimal changes to floodplain and estuary ecology low impact human use of the estuary, andminimal impacts from pests or weeds.

Disturbance (or ‘naturalness’) is a core criteria of many of the assessment frameworks listed in Appendix 8. The National Land and Water Resources Audit, and the Australian Wild Rivers project (Appendix 11) are two of particular importance due to their national scope, along with NZ’s Waters of National Importance project (Appendix 15). Also of particular note are those of Tasmania (Appendix 10), and Victoria (Appendix 16) – all relying on disturbance criteria and indicators.

Criteria currently in use:Criteria have been discussed by several Australian authors, including Dunn (2000), Bennett et al. (2002) and Kingsford et al. (2005). Kingsford’s detailed review found a considerable degree of consensus between criteria developed by different agencies. A listing and critique of criteria may be found in Appendices 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 13. Beyond that, a detailed review is not repeated in this paper, and readers should refer to Kingsford, for example, for further discussion. It should be noted that Kingsford’s discussion is largely framed in terms or rivers, but the general issues considered apply to aquatic ecosystems widely.

Criteria need to encompass the many conservation values involved (see those relevant to conservation listed in Appendix 9). However, criteria also need to be kept as simple as possible (Principle 5 above). In addressing this dilemma, the approach commonly used is to supplement simple criteria with guidelines on their application, and these guidelines should accommodate issues of detail applying, for example, to different major categories (eg: lentic or lotic) or to the way different conservation values (Appendix 9) are taken into account in the assessment. See the Ramsar guidelines in Appendix 2 as an example.

In the international context, Ramsar criteria have been in use in Australia for over three decades. These apply to aquatic ecosystems widely (following the Ramsar definition of ‘wetland’), and specifically identify ecosystems of international importance. The Canadian Heritage River System criteria (Appendix 4) have been used for over two decades, and introduce an important concept of ecosystem integrity. In Australia, criteria from the Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia (DIWA) have been in use for over a decade, and, although based on the Ramsar criteria, expand their scope by considering plant populations (criteria 4), and by including cultural and historic values (criteria 6). Appendix 8 lists a variety of approaches to waterway assessment, using different themes, classifications, and criteria.

While noting that ‘naturalness’ or lack of disturbance does not feature directly in the Ramsar or DIWA criteria5, common features within many of the sets of criteria (Appendix 8) relate to degree of disturbance, representation of an ecosystem type, and protection of ‘special’ ecological values such as threatened species or communities, diversity, rarity of feature, or functional ecological role.

Ecosystem integrity (as used in the Canadian Heritage Rivers System - CHRS) refers to the integrity of processes supporting the ecosystem, and is used as a surrogate for the ability of an ecosystem to maintain identified values over time (Appendices 4, 5). This concept is similar to the concept of ecological resilience – the ability of an ecosystem to return to its original state after disturbance. While an important, in fact vital, consideration, integrity is a different concept from value (Appendix 5) and should be addressed as a separate issue.

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To address the key issue of this paper, can a simple set of criteria be derived from existing approaches which will meet the principles set out above, including the three ‘practical’ principles proposed in New Zealand?

The answer is: ‘mostly yes’ – with the exception of NZ’s complementarity principle. A simple set, broadly applying to all types of aquatic ecosystem, and capturing all three levels of international, national and regional importance (with some complications) can be derived. The application of such criteria is not without its problems, and the most obvious of these are addressed in the Discussion below, and in Appendices 5 & 13.

Seven criteria are recommended, now referred to as the proposed HCVAE criteria, or ‘HCVAE criteria’ for short:

Criterion 1: The ecosystem and its catchment is largely undisturbed by the direct influence of modern human activity.

Criterion 2: The ecosystem is a good representative example of its type or class within a bioregion or sub-bioregion.

Criterion 3: The ecosystem is the habitat of rare or threatened species or communities, or is the location of rare or threatened or significant geomorphic or geological feature(s), or contains one of only a few known habitats of an organism of unknown distribution6.

Criterion 4: The ecosystem demonstrates unusual diversity and/or abundance of features, habitats, communities or species.

Criterion 5: The ecosystem provides evidence of the course or pattern of the evolution of Australia’s landscape or biota.

Criterion 6: The ecosystem provides important resources for particular life-history stages of biota.

Criterion 7: The ecosystem performs important functions or services within the landscape (e.g., refugia, sustaining associated ecosystems).

Rationale of proposed identification criteria:Criterion 1: The ecosystem and its catchment is largely undisturbed by the direct influence of modern human activity. A large-scale aquatic ecosystem that has a natural or near-natural flow regime and relatively little catchment disturbance is highly likely to retain important natural features, processes, and biota. Adjacent components such as riparian zone vegetation that remain largely unaltered, even if they lie within highly altered catchments, will also retain important natural features, processes and biota. As well as being areas of high conservation value, these undisturbed systems provide important unaltered reference systems (Downes et al. 2002) by which we can assess the condition (‘health’) of those ecosystems affected by change and deliberate modification. Rivers that remain undisturbed from source to mouth are particularly valued, as they are rare even at a global scale. However, so pervasive are anthropogenic impacts (e.g., exotic species, climate change), it is unlikely any truly pristine ecosystems exist. Therefore this criterion applies to ecosystems that are predominantly natural rather than pristine.

This criteria implicitly acknowledges the current lack of detailed understanding of the role, structure and function of ecosystems. By preserving undisturbed ecosystems we will protect many values as yet unrecognised, such as those relating to the smaller ecosystem components: invertebrates and microbes.

Disturbance has been used as a core indicator in major freshwater ecosystem mapping projects – see comments above relating to New Zealand, as well as the Tasmanian Conservation of Freshwater Ecosystem Values (CFEV) project (Appendix 10) and the

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Australian Wild Rivers project (Appendix 11). Several of the other assessment and classification approaches listed in Appendix 8 use disturbance or naturalness as core criteria.

Most of Australia’s least-disturbed rivers lie to the north (Appendix 12) and a similar situation exists with regard to lentic ecosystems.

Criterion 2: The ecosystem is a good representative example of its type or class within a bioregion. Protecting the diversity of ecosystems within systems of reserves is one of the cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation strategies (Convention on Biological Diversity 1992; principle 8 of the National strategy for the conservation of Australia’s biological diversity 1996).

Aquatic ecosystems that represent a type of ecosystem not otherwise protected within the existing reserve system will make them candidates for protection under this framework, as well as giving them a high importance rating. However, we need to understand how the components inter-relate, at what scale we decide a type of ecosystem contributes to ‘diversity’, and then develop a national ecosystem inventory, encompassing nationally agreed data collection strategies and evaluation, classification, and prioritisation techniques. For this, ecosystem classification methods adopted overseas (e.g., the SERCON system discussed in Boon et al. 1998) are suitable starting places and complement information already gathered for State inventories (e.g., Blackman et al. 1992; 1995, DIWA 2001), or national audits of the condition of freshwaters (e.g., the Assessment of River Condition, Norris et al. 2001).

Ephemeral and intermittent aquatic ecosystems should of course be included.

Criterion 3: The ecosystem is the habitat of rare or threatened species or communities, or is the location of rare or threatened or significant geomorphic or geological feature(s), or contains one of only a few known habitats of an organism of unknown distribution. Protection of rare and threatened species and communities is essential to biodiversity conservation. Entire communities may be threatened where they exist in specialized environments or in places where critical elements of habitat, such as fresh water, are important for human use and are under threat. In an arid country such as Australia, these critical habitat elements are often under heavy pressure and there are numerous examples of localized extinctions of Australian freshwater species or communities (Boulton & Brock, 1999). Even in well-watered areas, damming has led to extinction (e.g., the loss of at least seven endemic macroinvertebrate species in Lake Pedder, southwest Tasmania, for the controversial Gordon River Power Development Scheme (McComb & Lake, 1990)).

Rare and threatened species and communities may be found in highly disturbed ecosystems as well as in undisturbed systems. However, those populations found in highly disturbed systems are at greater risk of localized extinction (Pressey & Taffs, 2001). Protecting threatened species and communities in undisturbed aquatic ecosystems provides an increased chance of maintaining viable populations in natural settings. The concept of rare or threatened geomorphic or geological features is less familiar. The possibility of regenerating such features within human time scales is unlikely. While such features are not usually associated with the provision of ecosystem services, they nevertheless retain high intrinsic value for science and education. The last section of the criteria provides a precautionary approach, particularly for subterranean ecosystems, which are not adequately surveyed at a national scale.

Criterion 4: The ecosystem demonstrates unusual diversity and/or abundance of features, habitats, communities or species. Protection and conservation of ‘biodiversity hot spots’ or sites with highly diverse features is considered one of the most cost-effective ways to conserve a large number of species as well as to protect important ecological processes (Myers et al., 2000; Linke & Norris, 2003). However, processes that yield high species richness (e.g., highly diverse structural habitats in close proximity) may be quite different from processes which produce high site endemism (e.g., geographic or geomorphic isolation, evolutionary refuges). South-western Western Australia is recognized as one of

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the world’s regional hotspots of terrestrial biodiversity, and evolutionary isolation is a relevant factor in this case.

There is little information in published literature about Australian freshwater biodiversity hotspots. However, studies of subterranean fauna in limestone aquifers of Western Australia have shown unusually high diversity and endemism (Leys et al. 2003; Watts and Humphreys 2003, 2004), and isolated artesian mound springs in Australia’s arid interior are local hotspots of invertebrate endemism (Ponder & Colgan, 2002). At this stage, no freshwater protected areas have been established in Australia solely on the basis of elevated diversity or richness.

Criterion 5: The ecosystem provides evidence of the course or pattern of the evolution of Australia’s landscape or biota. This is an unusual criterion but in an island continent whose evolutionary history has led to remarkable adaptive radiation of species groups over long periods of isolation, protection of the evidence of this process is important. Taxa that are endemic or have Gondwanan affinities are considered to have particular value. Some taxa, such as the lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) and the mountain shrimp (Anaspides tasmaniae) are of special phylogenic interest and have a very limited natural range, which has been further reduced by anthropogenic impacts.

Protection of evidence of landscape evolution is also important, especially where this has occurred through riverine or subterranean action. Even evidence of water table changes from the structure and formation of carbonate-based materials in caves would satisfy this criterion, although Australia has a poor history of protection of its cave waters (Hamilton-Smith & Eberhard, 2000).

Criterion 6: The ecosystem provides important resources for particular life-history stages of biota. Aquatic ecosystems provide necessary resources (e.g., food, habitat) for particular fauna during certain seasons or critical stages in breeding or migration. Estuarine fish nursery areas (Blackman et al. 1999) and waterbird feeding and breeding grounds in numerous floodplain wetlands, especially across the arid zone (Kingsford, 1995) are key examples of critical habitat for aquatic fauna. Australia has international obligations to protect critical habitat for migrating birds, established by bilateral agreements such as the China Australia Migratory Birds Agreement, and the Japan Australia Migratory Birds Agreement.

Criterion 7: The ecosystem performs important functions and services within the landscape (e.g., refugia, sustaining associated ecosystems). Aquatic ecosystems provide important functions and services at a landscape level, and the identification and recognition of such services is important. Aquatic ecosystems assist in flood mitigation and water supply (for example through groundwater recharge). Aquatic ecosystems reduce levels of nutrients and other organic pollutants through vegetative uptake and sedimentation. They produce food, such as duck and fish. They can produce livestock fodder and timber, and provide habitat for predators of agricultural pests (ibis and grasshoppers, for example).

In an arid continent such as Australia, freshwaters provide crucial refuge environments within the landscape. Even in relatively well-watered areas, refuges during drought or the seasonal dry months in monsoonal tropical Australia enable aquatic biota to persist (Woinarski et al., 2000). These refuges also sustain terrestrial fauna in inhospitable environments because of the presence of water and abundant riparian and floodplain vegetation. Such areas may be threatened both by surface and groundwater extraction. Increasingly, the importance of aquatic corridors (both lateral and longitudinal) for distribution and recolonisation of biota are being acknowledged, even in wetlands that only connect occasionally (Jenkins & Boulton, 2003).

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Table 1: Criteria overlapProposed HCVAE criteria DIWA criteria Ramsar criteria1. Disturbance

2. Representation 1 1

3. Rarity and threat 5 1, 2

4. Diversity and abundance 3 - implicit

5. Evidence of evolution

6. Ecological importance 3 4, 7

7. Ecological function 2 4, 8

5: supports >20k waterbirds

4: supports >1% native sp 6: supports >1% waterbird sp

4: supports >1% native sp 9: supports >1% non-avian sp

4. supports >1% sp incl plants

6: outstanding historical or cultural significance

Application of identification criteria:The criteria discussed above rest largely on qualitative factors. While this is not ideal it appears to be largely unavoidable, and will probably remain so until Australia has sufficient national data to support a more comprehensive approach (see discussion below).

As discussed above, a guideline document needs to be developed to encourage uniform application of the criteria across different jurisdictions.

Such a guideline could be developed by a person or agency in draft form, then refined through a working group, and later at a workshop of experts drawn from State conservation agencies, academia and the Commonwealth Government. Obvious issues for consideration during the guideline development are the guidelines associated with the Ramsar and DIWA criteria, the CHRS guidelines, and ecological value lists such as those developed by the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment (Appendix 9).

Such guidelines should directly address sites important for ecosystem service provision7 (eg criteria 6 and 7).

Classification of importance:The concepts of ecosystem value and importance are discussed in Appendix 5. Importance may be expressed as an absolute or relative construct (Appendix 13). Absolute importance is importance assessed against an agreed scale, while relative importance assesses each site by comparing its value to the values of the group as a whole. Both systems are only partly science-based, and ultimately use arbitrary value judgements to separate importance categories (Appendix 13).

An importance classification regime could be proposed having five categories: significant at the international level; significant at the national level; significant at a State8 level; significant at a regional level; and significant at a local level;

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This five-tiered classification appears unnecessarily complex, and we propose that it should be reduced to four tiers by the removal of “State significance”. Such a simplification removes the need to develop an acceptable definition which would cover sites of State significance9, and would not appear to detract from the uses to which the classification is likely to be put (Appendices 5 and 13). State boundaries are based on historical politics, and have no ecological relevance10.

Obviously, sites of international significance are also important at the national and regional levels, and so on. If the seven criteria listed above are accepted, we recommend the following definitions (see discussion in Appendices 5, 13) apply. Note that the first level, and to a lesser extent the second level, are based on existing usage:

International significance : all ecosystems which meet at least one of the Ramsar criteria (even if not Ramsar listed) using Ramsar guidelines.

National significance : all ecosystems which do not meet the Ramsar criteria but which meet at least one the DIWA criteria (even if not DIWA listed).

Regional significance : all natural and semi-natural ecosystems not meeting the Ramsar or DIWA criteria, but which meet at least one of the seven proposed HCVAE identification criteria, and have an integrity level of medium or greater (see Appendices 4 and 5).

Local significance : all natural and semi-natural aquatic ecosystems not meeting regional, national or international importance categories. Aquaculture establishments, water treatment plants, irrigation channels and drains, and farm dams below 10 ML capacity are excluded.

Discussion:Although fairly simple and apparently logical, this proposed hierarchy does present some difficulties. Firstly, the hierarchy should reflect ecosystem integrity, which is strongly influenced by the size of the ecosystem and the threats faced by the ecosystem, including upstream water extraction and alien species (Appendix 5). In practice, one might expect internationally important ecosystems to be fewer but larger on the whole than nationally important ecosystems, and so on. In addition, Ramsar criteria 2 and DIWA criteria 3 and 5 take threat into account. The greater the rarity and vulnerability of the ecosystem, logically speaking, the higher should be the importance; however at the expense of integrity particularly where ecosystems are small. Edge effects will inevitably mean that the values of small isolated ecosystems are likely to degrade in the long term, without intensive management.

However, it is also important to keep importance categories relatively simple. The proposed ‘regional importance’ category listed above uses an integrity check as a simple, although not perfect, solution to this problem. A ‘traffic light’ integrity rating is envisaged (Appendix 5).

An additional point to consider is that, due to criteria overlap (see Table 1 above) many of the ecosystems falling into the regional importance category will do so because they meet criteria 1 (lack of disturbance) or 5 (evidence of evolution) which are not mirrored in either the Ramsar or DIWA criteria.

The most obvious problem with the general proposal is that all three sets of criteria are similar (see Table 1.) and may be unlikely, as they stand, to produce a workable hierarchy of significance when applied within the context of a national inventory of aquatic ecosystems (Appendix 13).

This highlights the importance of developing guidelines on the application of the importance criteria. While the guideline for the Ramsar11 criteria has already been established, there are opportunities to review current application of the DIWA criteria, and develop fresh guidelines for the HCVAE criteria. As recommended above, this should be done through a working group, and refined at a workshop.

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By way of background it should be noted that the proposal here is to use Ramsar and DIWA criteria, not Ramsar and DIWA listings. The listings, as they now stand, do produce an intuitively reasonable (although flawed in practice) hierarchy for the first two importance layers. Australia has 64 Ramsar sites, with something over 850 sites currently listed in DIWA; that seems a reasonable ratio of international to national importance sites. However, for historic reasons, sites in both these lists are predominantly lentic sites, with lotic, subterranean and estuarine sites seriously under-represented (Nevill and Phillips 2004).The number of sites able to meet Ramsar and DIWA criteria is probably much higher than the number of listed sites. For example, in New Zealand where an assessment was undertaken as part of the Waters of National Importance project, 103 Ramsar ‘candidate’ sites were identified (ie: those meeting Ramsar criteria) compared with NZ’s six currently listed Ramsar sites12. In Victoria (see Appendix 3) 11 Ramsar sites have been listed, included in 159 DIWA sites.

The core problem is that the existing DIWA criteria, and to some extent the proposed HCVAE criteria, are not sufficiently different from the Ramsar criteria. All sets of criteria will identify very important aquatic ecosystems (internationally significant), but are unlikely (without some modification) to be good at identifying all those of true national and regional significance (Appendix 13). This issue should ideally be addressed at both the criteria level and the criteria application guideline level. The recommendations below should be read in conjunction with Appendices 5 and 13.

‘Regional importance’ and its use with landuse and catchment planning frameworks

Broadly speaking, nationally important aquatic ecosystems should be identified, and these areas should be subject to strict protection (Nevill 2001; Saunders et al. 2002). A larger number and area of regionally important ecosystems or areas should be identified (Appendix 13) subject to protection largely through land use planning controls (Nevill & Phillips 2004 chapter 7).

The recommendation in this paper to use the proposed HCVAE criteria to designate ‘regional importance’ depends for its logic largely on the development of sensible guidelines taking bioregions and sub-bioregions into account. This assumes, of course, that the current IBRA regions and subregions (or a variation of this scheme) can adequately represent aquatic biodiversity. There is some evidence that this is not the case13. Although designating regional significance through a systematic approach has a firmer logical base, there are still alternative ways to approach the issue of just how ‘regional significance’ should be identified and used. For example, the following two possible approaches to identifying regional significance both use a systematic approach, but in completely different ways: Firstly, taking a strictly systematic approach, a set of ecosystems making up a minimum area (cost) within a bioregion, including examples of all ecosystem types within the bioregion, could be classed as regionally important.

Alternatively, it could be argued, within subregions, based on the provision of broad ecosystem services, that all aquatic ecosystems in the subregion having integrity scores of "medium" or "high" would be important on a subregional basis. Integrity could be scored by the approach suggested in Appendix 5, or some other defensible scoring system. It could then be argued that the best example of each ecosystem type in the subregion would be significant at the regional level, based on representation and complementarity (and taking into account the need for some protective redundancy).

This approach might lead toward a definition something like: "within a sub-bioregion, an example of each ecosystem type having the highest integrity score for that sub-bioregion will be classed as regionally important".

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A second (very different) approach would be to use systematics to identify ecosystems of national importance, and then, bearing in mind the role of the ‘regional importance’ classification in triggering land use planning mechanisms, to use this classification to identify entire catchments buffering those highly important sites. For example, this approach might follow the NZ WONI system, in simply classing the set of ecosystems making up the smallest area encompassing an example of each ecosystem type as nationally important, plus habitats of rare and endangered species and unique ecosystems. However, rather than designate 'catchments of national importance' as those catchments holding ecosystems of national importance (like WONI), the 'regional significance' concept could be used to cover those catchments.   This approach has the advantage that the resulting two-tiered importance classifications would be more likely to gain the support of those concerned about the impacts of protected areas, and thus less likely to undermine the effective implementation of a suite of protective controls (including landuse controls). Tight controls, like protected areas with total prohibition of prescribed activities, could be placed on the nationally important ecosystems themselves - however as we know such controls will fail for aquatic ecosystems without protection of the wider catchment (Pringle 2001). However these tight but spatially limited controls may succeed if supported by looser controls across the broader associated catchments. This would thus provide a framework (catchments of regional significance) for a series of landuse and catchment planning controls, based on wise use and protection of the values of the core nationally important ecosystems (eg Nevill & Phillips 2004 chapter 7; Nevill 2007).

Table 2. Suggested application of broad protective controls:National importance

Regional importance

Local importance

Protected area status, with management plan. Prescribed activities strictly prohibited.

Primary mechanism for lentic and subterranean ecosystems, and pristine estuarine areas. Limited use for lotic ecosystems other than pristine.

Limited use. Appropriate for easily protected sites of relatively small size. Appropriate where conservation and productive use conflicts are minimal.

Very limited use.

Landuse / catchment planning controls obliging an approval authority to “seek to protect” identified natural values.

Primary mechanism for lotic and peri-urban estuarine ecosystems where protected areas are not practical.

Primary mechanism for most ecosystem types. Primary mechanism for areas buffering nationally important sites.

Not appropriate: unnecessarily restrictive.

Landuse / catchment planning controls obliging an approval authority to “take into account the likely effects of the proposal” on the surrounding environment.

Not appropriate: unlikely to result in effective long-term protection.

Not appropriate: allows decision authority excessive leeway, especially with cumulative impacts (Nevill 2003, 2007).

Primary mechanism.

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Summary and conclusion:Ecosystems have values, and ecosystems with integrity are likely to maintain these values over time. Knowledge of ecosystem services and values are necessary for effective protection of biodiversity (or more broadly protection of natural values) across the Australian landscape14.

A rigorous and comprehensive approach to determining the relative importance of all aquatic ecosystems is desirable (Appendices 13,15). However, supporting data is not currently available in Australia at the national scale. In the interim, assessments of importance should rest on value and integrity, as assessed by a small number of general criteria which can be applied as a national inventory is developed. Agreed guidelines should facilitate harmonious practical application of these criteria by different users in different jurisdictions.

A small number of principles are proposed to guide selection of criteria for the identification of high conservation value aquatic ecosystems in Australia. Even without these principles, a perusal of criteria in current use in Australia and internationally reveals only a few core concepts. These concepts can be readily expressed in seven criteria, and seven general criteria are proposed which broadly apply to lentic, lotic, subterranean and estuarine ecosystems. These are called the proposed HCVAE criteria, and meet all but one of the guiding principles – that related to the use of systematic complementarity.

Importance categorisation, although necessary for planning purposes, is essentially arbitrary. A four-level importance classification is proposed as the most workable, and a cursory examination of existing and proposed criteria suggest a fairly simple classification into international, national, regional and local importance will work well in most cases. The top level (international importance) is ‘locked in’ to the Ramsar criteria through the EPBC Act (Appendix 14). Logically, it could be expanded but not contracted, as a contraction would breach Australia’s Ramsar commitments, and complicate reporting procedures.

However, there are obvious difficulties in the practical application of this approach to national and regional levels (caused by the similarity of the three sets of criteria) underlining the need for a minor review of the DIWA criteria, as well as guidelines to support the national use of both the DIWA and HCVAE criteria. Such guidelines, in practice, will need to be developed through an approach supported by all State Governments (a workshop is recommended) and later kept under review.

Integrity criteria are discussed in Appendix 5, and a draft set are proposed. These criteria should be used in conjunction with value criteria, and, as discussed above, guidelines should be developed covering such use.

Recommendations:Although a rigorous approach to the identification of importance (Appendices 13, 15) is recommended as a long term goal (perhaps modelled on the approach taken in New Zealand) this depends on the availability of a comprehensive national inventory of aquatic ecosystems, including subterranean ecosystems. Such an inventory will not be available in Australia for some time, given existing government funding levels (more below).

In the interim, it is recommended that sites of international, national and regional significance be identified using Ramsar, DIWA and HCVAE value criteria, respectively. The seven proposed HCVAE criteria could be complemented by the use of integrity criteria (Appendix 5).

While there is a problem created by the similarity of the three criteria sets, the simplest solution (see discussion in Appendix 13) is to introduce a new criterion, differently scaled, into both the DIWA and HCVAE criteria:

Using this approach, a new DIWA criterion should be introduced:

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The ecosystem has high irreplaceability value within a bioregional context: i.e. there is a high likelihood that the ecosystem will need to be conserved to achieve comprehensive and adequate protection of biodiversity.

At the same time a new HCVAE criterion should be introduced:

The ecosystem has high irreplaceability value within a sub-bioregional context: i.e. there is a high likelihood that the ecosystem will need to be conserved to achieve comprehensive and adequate protection of biodiversity.

The Ramsar application guidelines should be endorsed as they stand15 bearing in mind that they evolve gradually under international pressure. Guidelines for the application of DIWA criteria should be reviewed, and new guidelines for the application of the HCVAE criteria should be developed. Integrity criteria and guidelines should be developed as part of this exercise, drawing from the discussion in Appendix 5.

When the criteria are applied within a developing national ecosystem inventory, we recommend that sites of international importance also be referred to as ‘Ramsar candidate sites’, and sites of national importance also be referred to as ‘DIWA candidate sites’ – when these sites are not actually listed.

There should be no need to review either the application guidelines, or the HCVAE criteria, as they should, within a decade, be phased out by the development of a more systematic approach as the proposed national ecosystem inventory matures.

Laying long-term foundations:Australia has some of the world’s leading experts in systematic conservation planning: Bob Pressey, Hugh Possingham, and Simon Ferrier – for example. Not far away in New Zealand an impressive start has been made to the systematic assessment of freshwater ecosystem importance, and no doubt some of the expertise and experience would be available to Australia if requested and funded.

We recommend that the Commonwealth Government commit a 3-year budget to the development of a comprehensive national inventory of Australia’s non-marine aquatic ecosystems. Commonwealth and State governments have been moving towards such a project for several years16. A national inventory is needed to underpin regional natural resource management planning, to undertake a conservation status assessment of Australia’s inland aquatic ecosystems, and to support the long term development of a rigorous approach to establishing ecosystem importance. Such an inventory should use a flexible attribute database which would support a variety of ecosystem classification techniques, as well as (if necessary) freshwater bioregionalisations (Appendix 7).

This project should establish an inter-State steering committee (with funds to support State participation). Such a steering committee should be made up of scientists already involved in inventory construction. Although Commonwealth funded, it should be lead independently.

Further, as an early project, a group of selected scientists expert in systematic planning (including NZ expertise) should be asked (and funded) to recommend both a structure and an analysis protocol for the inventory, having importance identification partly in mind.

Acknowledgements:Special thanks to Bill Humphreys, Brian Finlayson, Doug Watkins, Helen Dunn, Hugh Robertson, James Fitzsimons, Janet Stein, Jessemy Long, Jim Tait, Paul Reich, Richard Kingsford, Richard Norris, Sam Lake, Simon Linke, Stuart Halse, and Tony Ladson, for help during the preparation of this and earlier supporting documents.

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Appendix 1. Principles for the conservation & management of freshwater ecosystems

prin'ciple n. i. Fundamental source, primary element; fundamental truth as a basis for reasoning; general law as guide to action. ii. (pl. and collect. sing.) Personal code of right conduct; on ~, from settled moral motive

Environmental principles are the essential concepts which, explicit or implicit, underlie all environmental legislation, policies, and programs. Many principles in wide use in Australia can be found in principle lists in international agreements, such as those set out in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development 1992 (available at http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/Rio_declaration_principles.htm).

Several important references have discussed and listed general principles relating to the conservation and management of inland aquatic ecosystems, and more generally to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems:

General resource management principles:At the most general level, Nevill (2005) has proposed principles of good governance, which while developed in the context of ocean resources, apply to natural resources generally. He proposed three ‘first tier’ principles, later divided into 20 ‘second tier’ principles. The first three are:

A. Ecological protection: management regimes should recognise, understand and protect the ecosystems of the ocean, in the interests of current generations, future generations and other life forms.

B. Good governance: management regimes should include the participation of all stakeholders, and should be transparent, reliable, accountable, enforceable, have integrity, and be cost-effective, flexible and practical.

C. Resource management: The planet’s resources should be used wisely, fairly, and without unnecessary waste, taking into account the needs, rights and responsibilities of current generations, the differing economic, cultural, political and technical resources of both developed and developing nations, as well as the need to pass on both renewable and non-renewable resources to future generations in a way which does not unduly prejudice their options. In doing so, management regimes should take account of: the rights and responsibilities of stakeholders, market behaviour and imperfections, the need for a precautionary approach in the face of complex and uncertain futures, the need to manage the cumulative impacts of incremental growth in resource use, and the ability of an adaptive approach to deliver continuous improvement in management outcomes.

The full list is available at http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/marineHobartPrinciples.htm.

Statutory environmental principles:Environmental legislation often cites key principles to guide the interpretation and application of the legislation. Nevill (2001) developed a set of ‘model principles’ based on Tasmania's Water Management Act 1999, the NSW Water Management Act 2000; and Victoria's Environmental Protection (Liveable Neighbourhoods) Bill 2000.

The list is available at http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/Model_objectives_and_principles_for_NRM.htm.

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Aquatic ecosystem management principles:At various times the Commonwealth Government has promoted the development and application of principles directly related to the management of freshwater ecosystems. The most important of these are:

ARMCANZ / ANZECC (1994) National Water Quality Management Strategy; Water Quality Management – An Outline of the Policies. Australian Government Publishing Service; Canberra. Available at http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/NWQMS_94_policy_outline.doc.

ARMCANZ / ANZECC (1996) National principles for the provision of water for ecosystems. Department of the Environment and Heritage, Canberra.Available at http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/Env_flows_principles96.doc.

Environment Australia (2000) Freshwater related environmental management principles and guidelines. Department of the Environment and Heritage, Canberra. Available at http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/DEH_FreshwaterPrinciples2000.pdf

Catchment Management Principles recommended by the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage (December 2000) Coordinating Catchment Management - report of the inquiry into catchment management. Available at http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/Env_principles_house_ICM.htm .

Land and Water Australia (2001) Principles for the management of freshwater ecosystems. RipRap Vol. 18.Available at http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/Env_principles_river_management.htm.

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Appendix 2. Ramsar criteria and criteria guidelines

Ramsar criteria for designating Wetlands of International Importance:Criteria for designating Wetlands of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Extract from Information Sheet on Ramsar Wetlands, Ramsar Secretariat (www.ramsar.org) accessed 2/2/2007

Australia uses the agreed criteria for designating wetlands as internationally important which are as follows:

Criterion 1: A wetland should be considered internationally important if it contains a representative, rare or unique example of a natural or near-natural wetland type found within the appropriate biogeographic region.

Criterion 2: A wetland should be considered internationally important if it supports vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered species or threatened ecological communities.

Criterion 3: A wetland should be considered internationally important if it supports populations of plant and/or animal species important for maintaining the biological diversity of a particular biogeographic region.

Criterion 4: A wetland should be considered internationally important if it supports plant and/or animal species at a critical stage in their life cycles, or provides refuge during adverse conditions.

Criterion 5: A wetland should be considered internationally important if it regularly supports 20,000 or more waterbirds.

Criterion 6: A wetland should be considered internationally important if it regularly supports 1% of the individuals in a population of one species or subspecies of waterbird.

Criterion 7: A wetland should be considered internationally important if it supports a significant proportion of indigenous fish subspecies, species or families, life history stages, species interactions and/or populations that are representative of wetland benefits and/or values and thereby contributes to global biological diversity.

Criterion 8: A wetland should be considered internationally important if it is an important source of food for fishes, spawning ground, nursery and/or migration path on which fish stocks, either within the wetland or elsewhere, depend.

Criterion 9: A wetland should be considered internationally important if it regularly supports 1% of the individuals in a population of one species or subspecies of wetland-dependent non-avian animal species.

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Guidelines for the application of the Criteria(based on the Strategic Framework and Guidelines for the future development of the List of Wetlands of International Importance)

Criterion 1:

1a) In applying this Criterion systematically, Contracting Parties are encouraged to:

i) determine biogeographic regions within their territory or at the supranational/ regional level;

ii) within each biogeographic region, determine the range of wetland types present (using the Ramsar Classification System for wetland type), noting in particular any rare or unique wetland types; andiii) for each wetland type within each biogeographic region, identify for designation under the Convention those sites which provide the best examples.

1b) When selecting a biogeographic regionalisation scheme to apply, it is generally most appropriate to use a continental, regional, or supranational scheme rather than a national or sub-national one.

1c) Objective 1 and, in particular 1.2 of the Strategic Framework, indicates that another consideration under this Criterion is to give priority to those wetlands whose ecological character plays a substantial role in the natural functioning of a major river basin or coastal system. In terms of hydrological functioning, the following is provided to assist Contracting Parties consider this aspect of determining priority sites under this Criterion. For guidance relevant to biological and ecological roles refer to Criterion 2 following.

1d) Hydrological importance. As indicated by Article 2 of the Convention, wetlands can be selected for their hydrological importance which, inter alia, may include the following attributes. They may:

i) play a major role in the natural control, amelioration or prevention of flooding;ii) be important for seasonal water retention for wetlands or other areas of conservation importance downstream;iii) be important for the recharge of aquifers;iv) form part of karst or underground hydrological or spring systems that supply major surface wetlands;v) be major natural floodplain systems;vi) have a major hydrological influence in the context of at least regional climate regulation or stability (e.g., certain areas of cloudforest or rainforest, wetlands or wetland complexes in semi-arid, arid or desert areas, tundra or peatland systems acting as sinks for carbon, etc.); vii) have a major role in maintaining high water quality standards.

Criterion 2:

2a) Ramsar sites have an important role in the conservation of globally threatened species and ecological communities. Notwithstanding the small numbers of individuals or sites that may be involved, or poor quality of quantitative data or information that may sometimes be available, particular consideration should be given to listing wetlands that support globally threatened communities or species at any stage of their life cycle using Criterion 2 or 3.

2b) General Objective 2.2 of the Strategic Framework urges Contracting Parties to seek to include in the Ramsar List wetlands that include threatened ecological communities or are critical to the survival of species identified as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered under national endangered species legislation/programmes or within international

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frameworks such as the IUCN Red Lists or Appendix I of CITES and the Appendices of CMS.

2c) When Contracting Parties are reviewing candidate sites for listing under this Criterion, greatest conservation value will be achieved through the selection of a network of sites providing habitat for rare, vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered species. Ideally, the sites in the network will have the following characteristics. They:

i) support a mobile population of a species at different stages of its life cycle; and/orii) support a population of a species along a migratory pathway or flyway - noting that different species have different migratory strategies with different maximum distances needed between staging areas; and/oriii) are ecologically linked in other ways, such as through providing refuge areas to populations during adverse conditions; and/oriv) are adjacent to or in close proximity to other wetlands included in the Ramsar List, the conservation of which enhances the viability of threatened species' population by increasing the size of habitat that is protected; and/orv) hold a high proportion of the population of a dispersed sedentary species that occupies a restricted habitat type.

2d) For identifying sites with threatened ecological communities, greatest conservation value will be achieved through the selection of sites with ecological communities that have one or more of the following characteristics. They:

i) are globally threatened communities or communities at risk from direct or indirect drivers of change, particularly where these are of high quality or particularly typical of the biogeographic region; and/or ii) are rare communities within a biogeographic region; and/oriii) include ecotones, seral stages, and communities which exemplify particular processes; and/oriv) can no longer develop under contemporary conditions (because of climate change or anthropogenic interference for example); and/orv) are at the contemporary stage of a long developmental history and which support a well-preserved paleoenvironmental archive; and/orvi) are functionally critical to the survival of other (perhaps rarer) communities or particular species; and/orvii) have been the subject of significant decline in extent or occurrence.

2e) When selecting a biogeographic regionalisation scheme to apply under paragraph 2d (i) and/or (ii), it is generally most appropriate to use a continental, regional, or supra-national scheme rather than a national or sub-national one.

2f) Note also the issues concerning habitat diversity and succession in paragraphs 46 to 49 of the Strategic Framework, "Boundary definition of sites".

2g) Be aware also of the biological importance of many karst and other subterranean hydrological systems.

Criterion 3:

3a) When Contracting Parties are reviewing candidate sites for listing under this Criterion, greatest conservation value will be achieved through the selection of a suite of sites that have the following characteristics. They:

i) are "hotspots" of biological diversity and are evidently species-rich even though the number of species present may not be accurately known; and/orii) are centres of endemism or otherwise contain significant numbers of endemic species; and/or

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iii) contain the range of biological diversity (including habitat types) occurring in a region; and/oriv) contain a significant proportion of species adapted to special environmental conditions (such as temporary wetlands in semi-arid or arid areas); and/orv) support particular elements of biological diversity that are rare or particularly characteristic of the biogeographic region.

3b) Be aware also of the biological importance of many karst and other subterranean hydrological systems.

3c) When selecting a biogeographic regionalisation scheme to apply, it is generally most appropriate to use a continental, regional, or supranational scheme rather than a national or sub-national one.

Criterion 4:

4a) Critical sites for mobile or migratory species are those which contain particularly high proportions of populations gathered in relatively small areas at particular stages of life cycles. This may be at particular times of the year or, in semi-arid or arid areas, during years with a particular rainfall pattern. For example, many waterbirds use relatively small areas as key staging points (to eat and rest) on their long-distance migrations between breeding and non-breeding areas. For Anatidae species, moulting sites are also critical. Sites in semi-arid or arid areas may hold very important concentrations of waterbirds and other mobile wetland species and be crucial to the survival of populations, yet may vary greatly in apparent importance from year-to-year as a consequence of considerable variability in rainfall patterns.

4b) Non-migratory wetland species are unable to move away when climatic or other conditions become unfavourable and only some sites may feature the special ecological characteristics to sustain species' populations in the medium or long term. Thus in dry periods, some crocodile and fish species retreat to deeper areas or pools within wetland complexes, as the extent of suitable aquatic habitat diminishes. These restricted areas are critical for the survival of animals at that site until rains come and increase the extent of wetland habitat once more. Sites (often with complex ecological, geomorphological and physical structures) which perform such functions for non-migratory species are especially important for the persistence of populations and should be considered as priority candidates for listing.

Criterion 5:

5a) When Contracting Parties are reviewing candidate sites for listing under this Criterion, greatest conservation value will be achieved through the selection of a network of sites that provide habitat for waterbird assemblages containing globally threatened species or subspecies. These are currently poorly represented in the Ramsar List.

5b) Non-native waterbirds should not be included within the totals for a particular site.

5c) Criterion 5 should be applied not only to multi-species assemblages, but also to sites regularly holding more than 20,000 waterbirds of any one species.

5d) For populations of waterbirds of more than 2,000,000 individuals, a 1% threshold of 20,000 is adopted on the basis that sites holding this number are of importance under Criterion 5. To reflect the importance of the site for the species concerned, it is also appropriate to list such a site under Criterion 6.

5e) This Criterion will apply to wetlands of varying size in different Contracting Parties. While it is impossible to give precise guidance on the size of an area in which these numbers may occur, wetlands identified as being of international importance under Criterion 5 should form

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an ecological unit, and may thus be made up of one big area or a group of smaller wetlands. Consideration may also be given to turnover of waterbirds at migration periods, so that a cumulative total is reached, if such data are available.

5f) Turnover of individuals, especially during migration periods, leads to more waterbirds using particular wetlands than are counted at any one point in time, such that the importance of such a wetland for supporting waterbird populations will often be greater than is apparent from simple census information.

5g) However, accurate estimation of turnover and total number of individuals of a population or population using a wetland is difficult, and several methods (e.g., cohort marking and resighting, or summing increases in a count time-series) which have at times been applied do not yield statistically reliable or accurate estimates.

5h) The only currently available method which is considered to provide reliable estimates of turnover is that of unique capture/marking and resighting/recapture of individually-marked birds in a population at a migratory staging site. But it is important to recognize that for this method to generate a reliable estimate of migration volume, its application usually requires significant capacity and resources, and for large and/or inaccessible staging areas (especially where birds in a population are widely dispersed) use of this method can present insuperable practical difficulties.

5i) When turnover is known to occur in a wetland but it is not possible to acquire accurate information on migration volume, Parties should continue to consider recognizing the importance of the wetland as a migratory staging area through the application of Criterion 4, as the basis of ensuring that their management planning for the site fully recognizes this importance.

Criterion 6:

6a) When Contracting Parties are reviewing candidate sites for listing under this Criterion, greatest conservation value will be achieved through the selection of a suite of sites that hold populations of globally threatened species or subspecies. Consideration may also be given to turnover of waterbirds at migration periods, so that a cumulative total is reached, if such data are available.

6b) To ensure international comparability, where possible, Contracting Parties should use the international population estimates and 1% thresholds published and updated every three years by Wetlands International as the basis for evaluating sites for the List using this Criterion. As urged by Resolutions VI.4 (Ramsar COP6) and Resolution VIII.38 (COP8), for the better application of this Criterion, Contracting Parties should not only supply data for the future update and revision of international waterbird population estimates, but also support the national implementation and development of Wetlands International's International Waterbird Census, which is the source of much of these data.

6c) At some sites, more than one biogeographical population of the same species can occur, especially during migration periods and/or where flyway systems of different populations intersect at major wetlands. Where such populations are indistinguishable in the field, as is usually the case, this can present practical problems as to which 1% threshold to apply. Where such mixed populations occur (and these are inseparable in the field) it is suggested that the larger 1% threshold be used in the evaluation of sites.

6d) However, particularly where one of the populations concerned is of high conservation status, this guidance should be applied flexibly and Parties should consider recognizing the overall importance of the wetland for both populations through the application of Criterion 4, as the basis of ensuring that their management planning for the site fully recognizes this importance. This guidance should not be applied to the detriment of smaller, high conservation status populations.

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6e) Note that this guidance applies just during the period of population mixing (often, but not exclusively, this is during periods of migration). At other times, it is generally possible to assign a 1% threshold accurately to the single population that is present.

6f) Turnover of individuals, especially during migration periods, leads to more waterbirds using particular wetlands than are counted at any one point in time, such that the importance of such a wetland for supporting waterbird populations will often be greater than is apparent from simple census information. For further guidance on estimation of turnover see the guidance under Criterion 5, paragraphs 5f-5i.

Criterion 7:

7a) Fishes are the most abundant vertebrates associated with wetlands. Worldwide, over 18,000 species of fishes are resident for all or part of their life cycles in wetlands.

7b) Criterion 7 indicates that a wetland can be designated as internationally important if it has a high diversity of fishes and shellfishes. It emphasises the different forms that diversity might take, including the number of taxa, different life-history stages, species interactions, and the complexity of interactions between the above taxa and the external environment. Species counts alone are thus not sufficient to assess the importance of a particular wetland. In addition, the different ecological roles that species may play at different stages in their life cycles needs to be considered.

7c) Implicit in this understanding of biological diversity is the importance of high levels of endemism and of biodisparity. Many wetlands are characterised by the highly endemic nature of their fish fauna.

7d) Some measure of the level of endemism should be used to distinguish sites of international importance. If at least 10% of fish are endemic to a wetland, or to wetlands in a natural grouping, that site should be recognized as internationally important, but the absence of endemic fishes from a site should not disqualify it if it has other qualifying characteristics. In some wetlands, such as the African Great Lakes, Lake Baikal in the Russian Federation, Lake Titicaca in Bolivia/Peru, sinkholes and cave lakes in arid regions, and lakes on islands, endemism levels as high as 90-100% may be reached, but 10% is a practical figure for worldwide application. In areas with no endemic fish species, the endemism of genetically-distinct infraspecific categories, such as geographical races, should be used.

7e) Over 734 species of fish are threatened with extinction worldwide, and at least 92 are known to have become extinct over the past 400 years. The occurrence of rare or threatened fish is catered for in Criterion 2.

7f) An important component of biological diversity is biodisparity, i.e., the range of morphologies and reproductive styles in a community. The biodisparity of a wetland community will be determined by the diversity and predictability of its habitats in time and space, i.e., the more heterogeneous and unpredictable the habitats, the greater the biodisparity of the fish fauna. For example, Lake Malawi, a stable, ancient lake, has over 600 fish species of which 92% are maternal mouth-brooding cichlids, but only a few fish families. In contrast, the Okavango Swamp of Botswana, a palustrine floodplain that fluctuates between wet and dry phases, has only 60 fish species but a wider variety of morphologies and reproductive styles, and many fish families, and therefore has a greater biodisparity. Measures of both biological diversity and biodisparity should be used to assess the international importance of a wetland.

Criterion 8:

8a) Many fishes (including shellfishes) have complex life histories, with spawning, nursery and feeding grounds widely separated and long migrations necessary between them. It is important to conserve all those areas that are essential for the completion of a fish's life cycle

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if the fish species or stock is to be maintained. The productive, shallow habitats offered by coastal wetlands (including coastal lagoons, estuaries, saltmarshes, inshore rocky reefs, and sandy slopes) are extensively used as feeding and spawning grounds and nurseries by fishes with openwater adult stages. These wetlands therefore support essential ecological processes for fish stocks, even if they do not necessarily harbour large adult fish populations themselves.

8b) Furthermore, many fishes in rivers, swamps or lakes spawn in one part of the ecosystem but spend their adult lives in other inland waters or in the sea. It is common for fishes in lakes to migrate up rivers to spawn, and for fishes in rivers to migrate downstream to a lake or estuary, or beyond the estuary to the sea, to spawn. Many swamp fishes migrate from deeper, more permanent waters to shallow, temporarily inundated areas for spawning. Wetlands, even apparently insignificant ones in one part of a river system, may therefore be vital for the proper functioning of extensive river reaches up- or downstream of the wetland.

8c) This is for guidance only and does not interfere with the rights of Contracting Parties to regulate fisheries within specific wetlands and/or elsewhere.

Criterion 9:

9a) When Contracting Parties are reviewing candidate sites for listing under this Criterion, greatest conservation value will be achieved through the selection of a suite of sites that hold populations of globally threatened species or subspecies. Consideration may also be given to turnover of individuals of migratory animals at migration periods, so that a cumulative total is reached, if such data are available (see guidance in paragraphs 5f-5i related to waterbirds which is also applicable to Criterion 9 in relation to non-avian animals).

9b) To ensure international comparability, where possible, Contracting Parties should use the most current international population estimates and 1% thresholds provided and regularly updated by IUCN's Specialist Groups though the IUCN Species Information Service (SIS) and published in the Ramsar Technical Report series, as the basis for evaluating sites for the List using this Criterion. An initial list of populations and recommended 1% thresholds is provided in the paper "Population estimates and 1% thresholds for wetland-dependent non-avian species, for the application of Criterion 9".

9c) This Criterion can also be applied to nationally endemic species or populations, where reliable national population size estimates exist. When making such an application of the Criterion, information concerning the published source of the population size estimate should be included in the justification for the application of this Criterion. Such information can also contribute to expanding the taxonomic coverage of the information on population estimates and 1% thresholds published in the Ramsar Technical Report series.

9d) It is anticipated that this Criterion will be applicable to populations and species in a range of non-avian taxa including, inter alia, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish and aquatic macro-invertebrates. However, only species or subspecies for which reliable population estimates have been provided and published should be included in the justification for the application of this Criterion. Where no such information exists, Contracting Parties should give consideration to designation for important non-avian animal species under Criterion 4. For better application of this Criterion, Contracting Parties should assist, where possible, in the supply of such data to the IUCN-Species Survival Commission and its Specialist Groups in support of the future updating and revision of international population estimates.

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Appendix 3. Directory of Important Wetlands of Australia (DIWA) criteria

Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia inclusion criteria:The criteria for determining nationally important wetlands in Australia, and hence inclusion in the Directory, are those agreed to by the ANZECC Wetlands Network in 1994 and used in the second edition.

A wetland may be considered nationally important if it meets at least one of the following criteria:

1. It is a good example of a wetland type occurring within a biogeographic region in Australia.

2. It is a wetland which plays an important ecological or hydrological role in the natural functioning of a major wetland system/complex.

3. It is a wetland which is important as the habitat for animal taxa at a vulnerable stage in their life cycles, or provides a refuge when adverse conditions such as drought prevail.

4. The wetland supports 1% or more of the national populations of any native plant or animal taxa.

5. The wetland supports native plant or animal taxa or communities which are considered endangered or vulnerable at the national level.

6. The wetland is of outstanding historical or cultural significance.

Many of the sites in the Directory meet more than one of the criteria. Application of the criteria to individual wetland sites involves a degree of subjectivity. Not only may certain aspects of a site’s significance be interpreted differently by different investigators, but information gaps often exist which make it difficult to judge whether or not a site meets a particular criterion.

The Interim Biogeographic Rationalisation for Australia (IBRA) is used as the framework for applying Criterion 1, which identifies wetlands that are unique or representative within a biogeographic region in Australia.

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Appendix 4. Canadian Heritage River System selection principles and guidelines

EXTRACT FROM CHRS WEBSITE, www.chrs.ca ACCESSED 20 Feb 2004. An extended discussion may be found in Appendix 14 of Nevill & Phillips 2004.

3. NOMINATION OF CANADIAN HERITAGE RIVERS3.1 Selection PrinciplesThe Canadian Heritage Rivers System provides for the recognition and conservation of rivers and sections of rivers deemed to be of outstanding Canadian heritage value. This value is obtained when it has been determined that a river is an outstanding representative of or unique in Canada or a province or territory. By the inclusion of such rivers in a single national system, they become representative of Canada's river heritage as a whole, thus reflecting a "Canadian value".

Rivers will be selected according to the following principles:

The outstanding value of Canadian Heritage Rivers shall be determined according to three sets of "Selection Guidelines":

selection guidelines for natural heritage values, selection guidelines for cultural values, selection guidelines for recreational values. A nominated river shall be included in the Canadian Heritage Rivers System if it

meets one or more of the natural or cultural selection guidelines, as well as a set of "Integrity Guidelines".

While there is no formal limit on the total number of rivers included in the System or on the number of rivers any individual jurisdiction can nominate for inclusion, the purpose of the System is not to provide for the conservation of all rivers of interest, importance or value, but only for the most outstanding of these from a Canadian viewpoint.

The Board will apply the selection guidelines in a manner which will allow all of the provinces and territories of Canada to participate in the Canadian Heritage Rivers System.

3.2 Selection Guidelines3.2.1 Natural Heritage Values. Outstanding Canadian natural heritage value will be recognized when a river and its immediate environment: Is an outstanding example of river environments as they are affected by the major

stages and processes in the earth's evolutionary history which are represented in Canada; or

Contains outstanding representations of significant ongoing fluvial, geomorphological and biological processes; or

Contains along its course unique, rare or outstanding examples of biotic and abiotic natural phenomena, formations or features; or

Contains along its course habitats of rare or endangered species of plants and animals, including outstanding concentrations of plants and animals of Canadian interest and significance.

3.2.2 Cultural Values. Outstanding Canadian cultural value will be recognized when a river and its immediate environment: Is of outstanding importance owing to its influence, over a period of time, on the

historical development of Canada through a major impact upon the region in which it is located or beyond; or

Is strongly associated with persons, events or beliefs of Canadian significance; or Contains historical or archaeological structures, works or sites which are unique,

rare or of great antiquity; or Contains concentrations of historical or archaeological structures, works or sites

which are representative of major themes in Canadian history.

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3.2.3 Recreational Values. Outstanding Canadian recreational value will be recognized when a river and its immediate environment possesses a combination of river-related recreational opportunities and related natural values which together provide a capability for an outstanding recreational experience. Recreational opportunities include water-based activities such as canoeing and

other forms of boating, swimming and angling, and other activities such as camping, hiking, wildlife viewing, and natural and cultural appreciation which may be part of a river-touring experience;

Natural values include natural visual aesthetics, and physical assets such as sufficient flow, navigability, rapids, accessibility and suitable shoreline.

3.3 Integrity GuidelinesIn addition to meeting specific heritage value guidelines, a river and its immediate environment must meet Integrity Guidelines in order to be admitted to the Canadian Heritage Rivers System.

1 This concept is found, for example, in the Stockholm Declaration 1972, the World Charter for Nature 1982, the Convention on Biological Diversity 1992, and the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia’s Biological Diversity 1996 (see principle 8). It was re-affirmed by the World Conservation Congress 2004.2 Slow-moving aquatic ecosystems such as, for example, lakes.3 Flowing aquatic ecosystems such as rivers and streams.4 Stygofauna live in water below the land surface; troglofauna live in air spaces below the land surface.5 In fact the opposite may apply: Ramsar encourages ‘wise use’ – so some site values may in fact depend on disturbance.6 See comments above on stygofauna and subterranean ecosystems.7 The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005, for example, draws heavily on conservation arguments related to the protection of ecosystem services. Note also that the IUCN protected area categories include categories (eg: 5 and 6) primarily dedicated to sustainable use.8 The NSW Government’s State Environmental Planning Policy 14 (SEPP 14) is a good example of the use of a ‘State’ importance classification. SEPP 14 lists coastal wetlands of State importance for the purposes of applying special consideration within the State’s land use planning framework (Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979). However, other Australian States have not taken a harmonious approach to the use and development of such tools. Queensland, as mentioned above, uses the DIWA in much the same way NSW uses SEPP 14; however it is the only State to do so.9 Particularly difficult as some States have ‘State importance’ lists while others do not. Such lists are the responsibility of State governments.10 In fact the reverse is sometimes the case, eg: Victoria and NSW divide, rather than unite, a major catchment basin.11 The Ramsar Secretariat is currently reviewing the Ramsar criteria and guidelines, with a draft discussion document expected in December 2007.12 No equivalent analysis has been undertaken in Australia, but should be as part of a national aquatic ecosystems inventory project. See Kingsford and Nevill 2006 – a scientist’s consensus statement: http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/freshwater.htm accessed 1/7/07.13 See Wells & Newall 2001, Doeg 2004, Tait 2004, and Unmack 2001.14 The extent to which human change has resulted in values highly regarded by society is also an area requiring further analysis. At times it can be difficult to ascertain the extent of human induced changes to ecosystem values and integrity.15 If expansion of the Ramsar criteria were to be contemplated, the most obvious ‘gap’ in the criteria relates to the inclusion of population levels for plants.16 Recent examples of progress towards a national freshwater ecosystem inventory are provided by that of Dr Janet Stein at the ANU Fenner School, in part examining reservation status of river types, and that of Dr Chris Auricht on the Land and Water Australia project: Review of wetland mapping and wetland inventory information, standards and protocols for an Australian Wetland Inventory.

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3.3.1 Natural Integrity Values. In addition to meeting one or more of the above natural heritage value guidelines, for a river to be judged to have outstanding Canadian natural heritage value, it must possess all of the following natural integrity values: The nominated area is of sufficient size and contains all or most of the key

interrelated and interdependent elements to demonstrate the key aspects of the natural processes, features, or other phenomena which give the river its outstanding natural value;

The nominated area contains those ecosystem components required for the continuity of the species, features or objects to be protected;

There are no man-made impoundments within the nominated section; All key elements and ecosystem components are unaffected by impoundments

located outside the nominated section; Natural values for which the river is nominated have not been created by

impoundments; The natural aesthetic value of the river is not compromised by human developments.

3.3.2 Cultural Integrity Values. In addition to meeting one or more of the above cultural heritage value guidelines, for a river to be judged to have outstanding Canadian cultural value, it must possess all of the following cultural integrity values: The nominated area is of sufficient size and contains all or most of the key

interrelated and interdependent elements to demonstrate the key aspects of the features, activities or other phenomena which give the river its outstanding cultural value;

The visual appearance of the nominated section of river enables an appreciation of at least one of the periods of the river's historical importance;

The key artefacts and sites comprising the values for which the river is nominated are unimpaired by impoundments and human land uses;

The water quality of the nominated section does not detract from the aesthetic appearance or the cultural experience provided by its cultural values.

3.3.3 Recreational Integrity Values. In addition to meeting both of the recreational value guidelines, for a river to be judged to have outstanding Canadian recreational value it must possess all of the following recreational integrity values: The river possesses water of a quality suitable for contact recreational activities1

including those recreational opportunities for which it is nominated; The river's visual appearance is capable of providing river travellers with a

continuous natural experience, or a combined natural and cultural experience, without significant interruption by modern human intrusions;

The river is capable of supporting increased recreational uses without significant loss of or impact on its natural, cultural or aesthetic values.

1 Contact recreational activities are defined in the document Canadian Water Quality Guidelines prepared by the Task Force on Water Quality Guidelines of the Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers, March 1987.

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Appendix 5. Value, integrity and importance criteriaIn a world of limited resources, managing natural resources efficiently and effectively depends on: understanding what values exist in specific locations (values are used to identify and

describe ecological assets); being able to control at least some of the processes which threaten those values

(see section 4.3 in Nevill & Phillips 2004); and being able to monitor changes to the condition (or health) of managed ecosystems

(assets) over time, as well as changes to value.

Value, integrity, importance (significance), condition and threatThese words are used in different ways in the literature relating to aquatic ecosystems, and it is thus not possible to refer to ‘general usage’ by way of explanation. To make matters more confusing, the terms actually overlap – both logically and in practice.

This paper adopts the following terminology:

Table A5.1 terminology.

TERM MEANING MEASUREMENT COMMENTS

value An aspect of the ecosystem which is valued by humans.

By defined criteria, eg: habitat for endangered species, or provision of ecosystem services17.

See discussion below.

integrity Possessing integrity of supporting ecological processes.

By defined criteria, eg size, or protection of environmental flows (see s.3.3.1 in Appendix 4 above).

Surrogate for ability to maintain values over time; similar to the ecological concept of resilience: recovery after disturbance.

importance Benchmark levels of value.

In Australia: four classes are proposed for use – see comments.

International, national, (State) regional, and local.

condition Degree to which the ecosystem approaches ‘natural’ or ‘pristine’ composition and function.

In Australia: by methods specific for broad ecosystem type: eg rivers – see comments.

Eg: AusRivAS invertebrate data, or the more general Index of Stream Condition – see box below.

threat A process likely to degrade identified ecosystem values.

The degradation of ecosystem values by human ecosystem modification or alien introduction has been well documented, and supports ‘informed judgement’ which is the most commonly used method for identifying threats. Quantitative measurement of threatening processes is usually not attempted.

Sometimes referred to as ‘pressure’ – particularly in studies using a ‘pressure/state/response approach (see Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005).

17 The provision of ecosystem services, including their conservation and valuation, is an emerging driver of conservation effort.

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Assessing the value of freshwater ecosystems:Value and condition overlap, but are separate concepts (see also section 7.5 of Nevill & Phillips 2004). For example, the wetlands in southwest Australia which now provide the only habitat for the western swamp turtle (Pseudemydura umbrina an endangered species) are valuable on that account; however, due to the degrading effects of surrounding urban and agricultural development, the condition of these wetlands is poor. Where threats are high and values are high, action should be taken to protect the condition of the ecosystem – otherwise values will degrade. Indices of condition have been developed for both streams and wetlands, aimed at enabling consistent monitoring and reporting over time (see discussion above relating to the ISC and ARC Index).

Value, or importance, can exist in both qualitative and quantitative measures. Consistent and transparent management and reporting frameworks depend on repeatable measurements over time, so there is a strong incentive to develop quantitative measures. The reality, however, is that most ecosystem management frameworks depend, to a greater or lesser extent, on qualitative concepts relating to both value and condition.

A review of discussions of aquatic ecosystem values (eg: Dunn 2000, Bennett et. al 2002, Government of Victoria 2002:s2.4.2) suggests that such conservation values can be expressed through seven general concepts (the HCVAE criteria proposed above):

a) the ecosystem and its catchment is largely undisturbed by the influence of modern human activity;

b) it is a good representative example of its ecological type or class within a bioregion;

c) the ecosystem is the habitat of rare or threatened species or communities, or is the location of rare or threatened or significant geomorphic or geological feature(s), or contains one of only a few known habitats of an organism of unknown distribution;

d) it demonstrates unusual diversity and/or abundance of features, habitats, communities or species;

e) it provides evidence of the course or pattern of the evolution of Australia’s landscape or biota;

f) it provides important resources for particular life-history stages of biota, or contains a unique ecosystem;

g) it performs important functions or services within the landscape (e.g. provides an ecological refuge, or it sustains associated ecosystems, or it is of sufficient size to allow evolutionary processes to take place…).

Kingsford et al. (2005) contains a discussion of similar river criteria and their background, and further discussion may be found in the main part of the present paper.

Assessing the integrity of freshwater ecosystems:Ecosystem integrity (as used in the Canadian Heritage Rivers System) refers to the integrity of processes supporting the ecosystem, and is used as a surrogate for the ability of an ecosystem to maintain identified values over time. This concept is similar to the concept of ecological resilience – the ability of an ecosystem to return to its original state after disturbance

The Canadian Heritage Rivers System (see s.3.3.1 in Appendix 4 above) provides integrity criteria specifically targeted to river ecosystems. These include criteria related to the absence of impoundments. In the present discussion we need more general criteria. An implicit assumption is that the ecosystem whose values are to be protected is a mature ecosystem, and is not a successional (seral) stage following disturbance. Where protected values involve the maintenance of ecosystem components dependent on ecological

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succession, it will be necessary to manage disturbance, possibly to maintain a patchwork of different successional habitats within a larger landscape-scale ecosystem.

An examination of the coincidence of value and integrity in both natural and man-made aquatic ecosystems (as measured by the indicators below) should be undertaken as a medium-term research project, noting that, for example, sometimes lakes with high organic loads can support large numbers of waterfowl.

The following general integrity criteria are suggested, and warrant further discussion and refinement, and later the development of application guidelines. A 3-unit ‘traffic light’ approach may be the most practical, with criteria ranges selected for sub-indices combining to a final integrity index from 0 to 10: ‘low’ index below 3; ‘medium’ index 3 to below 6; ‘high’ index above 6.

In the table below ‘protected’ includes all protection mechanisms, including off-reserve mechanisms – for example agreed catchment or NRM management plans. Where plans are foreshadowed but not yet developed, these can be taken into account provided their development is practical, and supporting funds are potentially available.

Table A5.1 Suggested criteria for assessment of integrity

lentic lotic subterranean estuarine

area / size area of protected catchment.

area of protected catchment.

area of protected catchment.

area of protected catchment.

shape / edge effects

protected area boundary length/area ratio

natural flow proportion of natural flow protected.

proportion of natural flow protected.

proportion of natural flow protected.

proportion of natural flow protected.

alien spp. proportion of native spp; presence of invasive or aggressive spp.

proportion of native spp; presence of invasive or aggressive spp.

proportion of native spp; presence of invasive or aggressive spp.

riparian zone proportion of natural zone undisturbed

proportion of natural zone undisturbed

proportion of natural zone undisturbed

pollution Australian water quality guidelines: ecosystem protection.

Australian water quality guidelines: ecosystem protection.

Australian water quality guidelines: ecosystem protection.

Australian water quality guidelines: ecosystem protection.

catchment land ownership

number of different owners in catchment.

number of different owners in catchment.

number of different owners in catchment.

number of different owners in catchment.

impediments to movement of native organisms

presence of dams or weirs / offset by presence of pathways (eg fish ladders).

prohibitions on the use of destructive fishing practices.

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Assessing importance or significance:Placing levels of importance on these values always involves arbitrary decisions about where the boundaries are between categories (discussed in more detail in Appendix 11). In Australia, the most commonly accepted importance (or significance) classification involves the use of two levels:

international importance; and

national importance.

Below these two levels, another three levels are occasionally used:

State importance;

regional importance (sometimes interpreted in the context of bioregions); and

local importance (often areas under the management of local government).

Generally speaking, these levels are seldom defined in a strictly measurable way, but criteria can be developed and are in use (see below). The top rungs of this hierarchy are referred to in the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (international and national levels). Ramsar criteria are used to identify sites of international importance. The hierarchy is also implicit in the term ‘national park’ which has achieved global acceptance. Several other frameworks use the hierarchy, such as Commonwealth and State threatened specie legislation and policy, cultural heritage conservation, and land use planning at regional or local government levels, including natural resource management (NRM). South Australia's Fisheries Act 1982 uses 'national significance' as a criteria for the designation of a marine park, but – as is usually the case – does not specify how it should be measured.

Victoria’s water quality policy provides special protection for areas of State significance, which are defined to include listed Ramsar sites, and Heritage Rivers listed under Victoria’s Heritage Rivers Act 1992. In NSW, wetlands of State significance are listed for the purposes of the landuse planning framework in State Environment Protection Policy 14.

Victoria’s wetland classification system illustrates how ‘international’, and ‘national’ importance classification levels might work in practice. Victoria is believed to contain around 17,000 wetlands (using the traditional Australian definition of wetland which excludes rivers and streams) over one hectare in size at the time of European settlement. Victoria’s 11 Ramsar sites have a surrogate ‘highest value’ or international importance. These sites sit within Victoria’s 159 wetlands listed in the Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia, resulting in 148 wetlands implicitly rated as ‘nationally significant’. All these sit within a larger dataset of the State’s 13,114 listed wetlands, the remainder implicitly having State, regional or local importance – usually not identified. Of the 4000 ‘missing’ wetlands… the remaining wetlands have not been included in the wetland inventory – and most will never be included due to small size and/or degraded condition. However, many of the larger floodplain wetlands are likely to be added.

Using importance levels:Importance levels are most commonly used in planning or resource allocation decisions.

Under the EPBC Act, sites of designated ‘national environmental significance’ (defined as including Ramsar sites – DIWA is not mentioned in the Act) receive limited special protection (see Appendix 14). In addition, DIWA sites (although not designated as either ‘national’ or ‘regional’ importance in statute) are used as referral triggers in Queensland planning legislation (Nevill and Phillips 2004). In all other States DIWA sites may be used as issues of consideration, but are not imbedded in the statutory planning framework. However the Queensland legislation provides a model indicating how importance classification may be used. As mentioned above, in NSW, a list of wetlands (State Environmental Protection Policy 14) contains a list of wetlands of State importance which are used in much the same way as Queensland uses the DIWA list.

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Below the international and national levels, designated sites of regional significance, if made available through official State or national databases, are highly likely to influence planning and resource allocation decisions. For example, it is possible, perhaps likely, that State planning legislation would (over a period of time) be amended to require that a project approval involving effects on a ecosystem of regional significance “must seek to maintain the designated values of sites of regional significance”. Under such legislation, effects of a development proposal on sites of local importance would remain, as is mostly the case today, simply matters of consideration (Nevill 2007).

Support for compensatory ecosystem values could be an important statutory tool, as is currently the case under Victoria’s vegetation protection legislation (see the discussion of the ‘net gain’ concept in Nevill & Phillips 2004:A4.3.4).

Assessing the condition of freshwater ecosystems:Both the Index of Stream Condition (ISC) and the Australian River Condition (ARC) Index share a philosophy where waterway condition is assessed independently of any special values the waterway may have (unlike the approach taken by Bennett et al. 2002). Condition is assessed by the use of quantitative indicators which reflect both primary drivers of ecosystem health (such as hydrology) as well as indicators that represent measures of ecosystem function (such as invertebrate indices).

The ISC combines five indicators of river health: hydrology, water quality, physical form, the streamside zone, and aquatic life. The National Audit project reported an integrated ARC Index, also made up of five key indicator groups: hydrology (including change in seasonal period, seasonal amplitude, flow duration curve, mean annual discharge), water quality, physical habitat, catchment disturbance, and biota. The biota data in the initial Audit report was limited to AUSRIVAS macro-invertebrate data of the NRHP, but this framework is being expanded. The ARC Index was developed in the knowledge that a considerable amount of modelled data, rather than measured field data, would be used to obtain a reasonable degree of national coverage. A primary difference between the ARC and the ISC is that all five sub-indices are integrated to a single assessment in the ISC while the ARC combines the environmental sub-indices and keeps them separate from the biota index. Thus, the ARC reports the ARCE (environment) and the ARCB (biota) as the response variables.

Similar indices for wetlands and aquifers are not in general use in Australia, although Spencer et al. 1998 trailed a wetland condition index. This is an area where further work is needed. An Index of Wetland Condition (IWC) has been developed in Victoria. According to Papas and Holmes 2004a: “Condition, based on the Ramsar definition of ecological character, will be measured against a reference, and the index will be structured on the primary components that define wetlands: soils, hydrology and biotic communities, and the wetland catchment. The IWC will be a standard rapid assessment method for wetland condition in Victoria, and will be straightforward and cost-effective to apply”. See also Papas and Holmes 2004b, and Holmes and Papas 2004.

Comment by Max Finlayson: Changes in the definition of ecological character to include explicit mention of ecosystem services as a component of the ‘character’ of a wetland suggest that either the index needs to consider specifically only the ecological components of the wetland or needs to be extended to include ecosystem services; it is unlikely we have sufficient information to do the latter.

These issues, and some of the dilemmas involved in using the concepts to prioritise the funding of conservation or rehabilitation programs, are discussed in section 7.5 of Nevill & Phillips 2004.

The concept of ecological character and its relationship with ecological health are emerging issues within the Ramsar Convention given increased emphasis on the wise use of wetlands and the importance of ecosystem services.

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Appendix 6. Ramsar classification for wetland typeAnnex I to Information Sheet on Ramsar Wetlands, Ramsar Secretariat (www.ramsar.org) accessed 2/2/2007.

The codes are based upon the Ramsar Classification System for Wetland Type as approved by Recommendation 4.7 and amended by Resolutions VI.5 and VII.11 of the Conference of the Contracting Parties. The categories listed herein are intended to provide only a very broad framework to aid rapid identification of the main wetland habitats represented at each site.To assist in identification of the correct Wetland Types to list in section 19 of the Ramsar Information Sheet, the Secretariat has provided below a tabulations for Marine/Coastal Wetlands and Inland Wetlands of some of the characteristics of each Wetland Type.

Marine/Coastal WetlandsA -- Permanent shallow marine waters in most cases less than six metres deep at low

tide; includes sea bays and straits.B -- Marine subtidal aquatic beds; includes kelp beds, sea-grass beds, tropical marine

meadows.C -- Coral reefs.D -- Rocky marine shores; includes rocky offshore islands, sea cliffs.E -- Sand, shingle or pebble shores; includes sand bars, spits and sandy islets; includes

dune systems and humid dune slacks.F -- Estuarine waters; permanent water of estuaries and estuarine systems of deltas.G -- Intertidal mud, sand or salt flats.H -- Intertidal marshes; includes salt marshes, salt meadows, saltings, raised salt marshes;

includes tidal brackish and freshwater marshes.I -- Intertidal forested wetlands; includes mangrove swamps, nipah swamps and tidal

freshwater swamp forests. J -- Coastal brackish/saline lagoons; brackish to saline lagoons with at least one relatively

narrow connection to the sea.K -- Coastal freshwater lagoons; includes freshwater delta lagoons.Zk(a) - Karst and other subterranean hydrological systems, marine/coastal

Inland WetlandsL -- Permanent inland deltas.M -- Permanent rivers/streams/creeks; includes waterfalls.N -- Seasonal/intermittent/irregular rivers/streams/creeks.O -- Permanent freshwater lakes (over 8 ha); includes large oxbow lakes.P -- Seasonal/intermittent freshwater lakes (over 8 ha); includes floodplain lakes.Q -- Permanent saline/brackish/alkaline lakes.R -- Seasonal/intermittent saline/brackish/alkaline lakes and flats.Sp -- Permanent saline/brackish/alkaline marshes/pools.Ss -- Seasonal/intermittent saline/brackish/alkaline marshes/pools. Tp -- Permanent freshwater marshes/pools; ponds (below 8 ha), marshes and swamps on

inorganic soils; with emergent vegetation water-logged for at least most of the growing season.

Ts -- Seasonal/intermittent freshwater marshes/pools on inorganic soils; includes sloughs, potholes, seasonally flooded meadows, sedge marshes.

U -- Non-forested peatlands; includes shrub or open bogs, swamps, fens.Va -- Alpine wetlands; includes alpine meadows, temporary waters from snowmelt.Vt -- Tundra wetlands; includes tundra pools, temporary waters from snowmelt.W -- Shrub-dominated wetlands; shrub swamps, shrub-dominated freshwater marshes,

shrub carr, alder thicket on inorganic soils.Xf -- Freshwater, tree-dominated wetlands; includes freshwater swamp forests, seasonally

flooded forests, wooded swamps on inorganic soils.Xp -- Forested peatlands; peatswamp forests.Y -- Freshwater springs; oases.

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Zg -- Geothermal wetlandsZk(b) - Karst and other subterranean hydrological systems, inland

Note: "floodplain" is a broad term used to refer to one or more wetland types, which may include examples from the R, Ss, Ts, W, Xf, Xp, or other wetland types. Some examples of floodplain wetlands are seasonally inundated grassland (including natural wet meadows), shrublands, woodlands and forests. Floodplain wetlands are not listed as a specific wetland type herein.

Human-made wetlands1 -- Aquaculture (e.g., fish/shrimp) ponds2 -- Ponds; includes farm ponds, stock ponds, small tanks; (generally below 8 ha).3 -- Irrigated land; includes irrigation channels and rice fields.4 -- Seasonally flooded agricultural land (including intensively managed or grazed wet

meadow or pasture).5 -- Salt exploitation sites; salt pans, salines, etc.6 -- Water storage areas; reservoirs/barrages/dams/impoundments (generally over 8 ha).7 -- Excavations; gravel/brick/clay pits; borrow pits, mining pools.8 -- Wastewater treatment areas; sewage farms, settling ponds, oxidation basins, etc.9 -- Canals and drainage channels, ditches.Zk(c) - Karst and other subterranean hydrological systems, human-made.

Tabulations of Wetland Type characteristics

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40

Appendix 7. Inventories of freshwater ecosystemsExtract from Nevill & Phillips 2004.

Inventories: an introductionThe development of inventories of ecosystem assets is a requirement of the World Charter for Nature 1982 (article 16.) and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 1971, as well as being a core component of accepted resource management practices. This resourcebook aims to provide a brief overview of the development of State-wide inventories of freshwater ecosystems in Australia’s eight jurisdictions. All jurisdictions have inventories of biota18 or geomorphology at particular freshwater sites – however these are not the subject of this discussion: here we focus on State-wide inventories of particular freshwater ecosystem types. The purpose of the overview is to examine the current state of such inventories in Australia, focussing on (a) the existence of comprehensive classifications and mapping which might support the identification and selection of representative freshwater ecosystem reserves, and (b) the existence of inventories including value and condition data – needed to support State-wide planning and reporting frameworks.

When Watkins reviewed Australian wetland inventories in 1999, 17 inventories, mostly regional, were available (Watkins 1999). Inventories of river and subterranean ecosystems do not appear to have been similarly reviewed.

The definition of the term “wetlands” in this book is that used by Commonwealth of Australia (1997), not that used in the Ramsar convention. This latter definition encompasses both rivers and subterranean freshwater ecosystems. “Freshwater” is used in this book as a shorthand form of “aquatic inland”. The term “reserve” is used to encompass the first four of the IUCN’s six-part protected area classification. “Protected area” is used as defined by the IUCN. For further discussion of definitions, see appendices).

Estuaries19 are included briefly in the discussion below. Estuaries are amongst the most productive ecosystems in Australia, and in some cases the most vulnerable to human impact – absorbing both direct impacts from coastal development together with impacts from the development of their hinterland catchments. Rivers feed estuaries, and the two interact. Small coastal estuaries which open intermittently to the sea are particularly dependent (ecologically) on river flows. Estuaries and rivers should be treated as continuous systems. The continued focus on rivers to the neglect of estuaries seems to have come about because the old Departments of Water in each State were charged with the care of rivers (freshwater), while estuaries were left largely in the care of the immediate local government – a recipe for incremental degradation.

The need for inventories:No business could survive without inventories of assets. Businesses seek to maintain or increase the value of assets, while protecting or enhancing the productive capacity of those assets. Asset management is based on knowledge of where assets are located, what their values are, and what their condition is. Where the condition of valuable assets is declining, management efforts can be directed in efficient and effective ways only if management knows what is happening. Inventories enable effort to be focussed where it can be most effective.

Natural values are distributed across the landscape, and must be protected within the landscape. A full range of biodiversity values, for example, cannot be protected within ‘captive ecosystems’. Even if it were possible, it would, in almost all cases, be impractical or uneconomic. Biodomes – simplified ecosystems designed to support a small number of

18 According to Buz Wilson, Australian Museum (email 6/10/02) “An inventory, in my view, should also include a complete known species list for sections of each drainage. At the moment, this has not be done for any Australian River. The River Murray has only a partial job done, thanks to the work in the 1980's”.

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humans – have proved impractical even when constructed at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Human activities also take place across the landscape. To varying extents, governments have designed frameworks (for the control and management of these activities) which seek to protect natural values. These frameworks can only be effective if knowledge is available of where natural values are located. Knowledge is also needed of pressures on these values (threats created by human activities, for example) and the way values are likely to respond to such pressures. This kind of knowledge must be available for particular areas or sites.

The values of freshwater ecosystems cannot be efficiently or effectively protected without inventories of freshwater ecosystems. Such inventories: should be comprehensive – they should include rivers, wetlands, estuaries and

subterranean ecosystems; should contain information on the location of the ecosystems – where they start and

finish, and where connections occur in terms of water flow; should contain information on the values of particular sites; should contain information on the condition of particular sites, re-assessed at

intervals, and should be readily accessible both to decision-makers (such as natural resource

managers or local government planners) and to stakeholders inputting into the decision-making process.

Development assessment processes put in place by State governments generally work at one of two levels: (a) assessment of individual development proposals, and (b) assessment of developments within a strategic planning context. The first type needs information on values which may be affected in the vicinity of the development. Different levels of likely impact generally invoke different assessment processes. The second type of assessment process needs information on values in the planning region, to provide a background against which strategic limits on development may be imposed. Inventories can supply information to both kinds of assessment procedures; indeed, without this information the procedures and planning frameworks cannot work effectively.

Methods for assigning and measuring value have been developed. The National Directory of Important Wetlands, and the Ramsar framework both provide criteria of ‘importance’. Dunn (2000) and Bennett et al. (2002) provide criteria, and general guidance on assigning and measuring the values of rivers and streams. The AusRivAS macro-invertebrate sampling program is focused not on value but on condition; however data from the program have been used in studies aimed at identifying rivers of high conservation value (Chessman 2002). The Commonwealth Government’s National Audit condition data should, by making this information generally accessible, assist in programs aimed at identifying and protecting high value rivers – simply because ‘naturalness’ (or lack of disturbance) is one of the values generally sought. Limitations on the scope of the Audit data, discussed below, imply a need for a layered approach in such studies.

Inventories and reserves:To what extent are representative examples of Australian freshwater ecosystems protected within existing networks of protected areas? This is an important question, and one of the key questions behind any process for freshwater reserve identification and selection. It is important to note that terrestrial protected areas do not always protect imbedded freshwater ecosystems – for example the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme lies in part within Kosciusko National Park. Other key questions relate to feasibility: land ownership and control, catchment land use, and the presence of threatening processes and possibilities for their management.

We know where our protected areas are (national parks, for example) – but how are different types of freshwater ecosystem distributed across the Australian continent, and how are they

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distributed in relation to the reserve network? Comprehensive inventories need to be developed covering all freshwater ecosystems to answer this question.

Reserves also form a layer in the ‘value’ information held within inventories of freshwater ecosystems. For example, Victoria’s 11 Ramsar sites have a surrogate ‘highest value’ (international importance) rating amongst 159 designated wetlands of ‘national importance’ – which themselves sit within a larger dataset of the State’s 13,114 listed wetlands. Victoria’s planning framework takes these different levels of value into account when assessing development applications20.

Inventory constructionAt present there are no accepted national frameworks (either funding or theoretical) which seek to provide consistency across the Australian continent in regard to the development of comprehensive freshwater ecosystem inventories.

Inventories generally use methods of classification, or ways of allocating different ‘types’ to different ecosystems (or – at a lower level of detail – habitats). Classification theory depends on the assumption that areas can be grouped which are alike; ie: areas within each group are more similar to each other than they are to areas which have been placed in different groups. Measures of similarity and difference are made by examining attribute values (water depth, for example). Wetland attribute values, at a particular site, generally fall within predictable ranges. Typically, Australian’s highly variable climate results in characteristic variations in attribute values over time, at any particular site.

Ecosystem classification is a tool for studying, managing, and communicating information about particular types of ecosystem. It typically involves defining ecosystem types, to which individual ecosystems can be allocated. Classification is a fundamental component of inventory; underpinning mapping and reporting of ecosystem occurrence by type.

Various Australian authors have reviewed classification and inventory issues for wetland environments. Notable examples are Barson and Williams (1991) and Pressey and Adam (1995). More recently Duguid et al. (2003) have reviewed these issues with particular reference to arid zone wetlands. The following summary of some of the issues comes from Duguid et al. (2003).

Pressey and Adam (1995, p.87) included as classification “any attempts, intuitive or numerical, to group wetlands with common characteristics or to identify the types of environments and biota they contain”. They stated the importance of seeing classifications “in two ways: (1) as hypotheses about the way in which features of wetlands are arranged in space and time; and (2) as responses to the need for particular types of information for particular purposes, dependent also on the geographical scale of the study and the variability of the wetlands.” (Pressey & Adam, 1995, p.95).

Similarly, Barson and Williams (1991) listed the following uses of wetland classifications: description of ecological units – with certain homogeneous natural attributes; aiding resource management; inventory and mapping; and aiding communication by promoting consistent terminology.

Methods of classification depend on the availability of information about each ecosystem. More detailed knowledge can support more detailed classification approaches. Typically, such knowledge is not uniformly available. We may know a great deal about highly visible ecosystems near centres of population, for example, but little about remote and inaccessible ecosystems.

The traditional approach to this dilemma is to use nested hierarchies of classification approaches. As more information becomes available, more detailed classifications are invoked. For example, a first cut may simply be to divide aquatic ecosystems into five broad categories: (a) rivers and streams, (b) inland wetlands, (c) estuaries, (d) shallow marine systems, and (e) aquifers (or subterranean ecosystems). To continue the example, rivers

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and streams could then be subdivided into five categories which take account of key ecosystem variables: tidal, lower catchment perennial, upper catchment perennial, undefined catchment perennial, and intermittent. In turn, each of these categories may be subdivided – for example by substrate type or dominant vegetation type.

The key environmental attributes that are generally used to classify the variety of wetland environments are:

geomorphic – landform, size and substrate; hydrological regime (permanency, frequency, duration and depth of inundation); water and soil salinity; vegetation type and/or characteristic species. scale and spatial arrangement (including complexity or uniformity); and source of water;

Climate is usually excluded if analysis is conducted on a bioregional (or sub-bioregional) basis, on the assumption that climatic variation can be captured by protecting similar ecosystems across bioregions. It should be born in mind that bioregions defined according to the protocols of the Interim Bioregionalisation of Australia (IBRA) do not attempt to account for micro-climatic variation: there can be significant climatic differences on opposite sides of a mountain, for example. While the IBRA design principles attempt to capture regions of relatively homogenous climate, this may not always be achieved.

Continuing with examples, a freshwater permanent deep wetland could be subdivided into finer categories, depending on the biotic assemblages found in different locations. Faunal biota classifications might consider dominant or keystone species21. Floral classifications may refer to species dominating energy or nutrient pathways.

A discussion of different approaches to wetland classification may be found in Finlayson (1999). This book describes an outline of an approach for wetland inventory that overcomes some of the difficulties of classification. It supports the basic water regime and landform categorisations, with other detail added as necessary. Using this approach, core data are collected for each wetland and arranged in a database, free of classification categories. This data can then be analysed as needed in a variety of classification formats (or outside these formats as needed for a particular application). This approach has been used as the basis for the Asian Wetland Inventory (see www.wetlands.org). Many of the features are also included within the draft Ramsar framework for wetland inventory (see papers available on www.ramsar.org).

These approaches are multi-scalar with a hierarchical data format. That is, depending on the scale and/or objective chosen for the particular study, the inventory can be undertaken within a linked framework with cascading data fields. It can operate either top-down or bottom-up.

The classification system used by the Queensland Wetland Inventory Program (Blackman et al. 1992) was the Australian forerunner of this approach22, and is the best example of the use of this technique in Australia. The Queensland handbook describes both the theory behind the classification method, as well as techniques for field data collection. The Queensland Wetland Inventory, while not complete, is the most rigorous and comprehensive of any Australian State in terms of scope and structure.

An important question is: how large should a system of protected areas be to preserve most of a bioregion’s biodiversity? In other words, could 90% of the biodiversity be protected within a system of reserves holding 20% of the bioregion’s area? Information on the way in which biodiversity is distributed across the landscape is needed to answer this question. In this context biodiversity is difficult to measure directly23; the usual approach is to use the finest level of ecosystem information available (as a surrogate for measuring biodiversity) – which is usually habitat attribute24. Blackman’s work includes multivariate attribute analysis providing measures of difference between groups of wetland aggregations – a useful measure to address this issue.

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The durability of reserves also needs to be considered. Island biogeographic theory predicts that small (and even medium sized) reserves will lose many species through local extinction events if they are isolated from similar habitat.

The NZ Department of Conservation has been undertaking studies of environmental differences for around 5 years now, where differences are mapped at a 30m pixel level using climatic and landform attributes. Again, these attributes (or groups of attributes) can be viewed as a surrogate for biodiversity. Such studies can indicate how biodiversity is likely to be distributed nationally, and with respect to the nation’s reserve framework (Department of Conservation NZ, 2001a, 2001b). Such data need to be checked against field surveys, of course. As a first step it provides a powerful tool for the strategic planning of biodiversity conservation measures.

If ecosystems within a bioregion are very similar, a high level of protection (for the region’s biodiversity) may be (theoretically) obtained by protecting a relatively small area. This is usually not the case, reinforcing the importance of off-reserve biodiversity protection measures.

Provisional classifications for Queensland wetlands and deepwater habitats (see Blackman reference above) are included at the close of this chapter. A list of different approaches to river classification can be found in Appendix 3 below.

National and State estuary inventories:National estuary inventories ignore very small ones, simply because there are so many of them. The first national inventory of Australia's estuaries was undertaken in 1987 and published two years later (Bucher and Saenger 1989). It listed 783 estuaries.

The Cooperative Research Centre for Coastal Zone, Estuary and Waterway Management (CRCCZEWM) undertook a review and expansion of this work for the National Land and Water Resources Audit, which published an updated Inventory of Estuaries in September 2001. This inventory undertook a general assessment of estuary condition, based on both terrestrial (catchment) and aquatic disturbance indicators, and found that around 50% of the 974 estuaries examined could be classified as 'near pristine', with another 22% classed as 'slightly modified'.

An estuary was classified as near pristine if it had: a high proportion of natural vegetation cover in the catchment minimal changes to hydrology in the catchment no changes to tidal regime minimal disturbance from catchment land use minimal changes to floodplain and estuary ecology low impact human use of the estuary, and minimal impacts from pests or weeds.

The other three categories of the assessment—largely unmodified, modified and severely modified—display increasing levels of changes for some or all of these key criteria.

The 'natural' estuaries are clustered mainly along Australia's tropical (far northern) coastline, and along the south west coast of Tasmania, adjacent to the World Heritage Area. The CRCCZEWM is continuing to work on a National Estuary Audit involving an assessment on the condition of around 980 estuaries around Australia.

The Estuary Audit uses a basis 7-category classification, developed by Geoscience Australia, reflecting the form and energy drivers of the estuary:

wave-dominated estuary tide-dominated estuary wave-dominated river delta tide-dominated river delta

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tidal creek flats, and strand plain.

A seventh category, 'other' includes drowned river valleys, embayments, and coastal lagoons.

The wetlands inventory developed by the Queensland EPA (see discussion below) uses a more detailed classification based on geomorphology and biology, dividing estuaries (the 'ecological system') into two subsystems (sub-tidal and inter-tidal), 13 classes, and 43 subclasses.

Only about 50 of Australia's 1000-odd estuaries have been intensively studied, and most of these have been highly modified. Although hindered by lack of data, the Estuary Audit used a pressure-state-response model to provide a general picture on estuary threats and condition. At this stage, no cohesive attempt has been made to develop value indicators on a national scale; however, it should be noted that some estuaries do have Ramsar classification.

The Audit developed a weighed index for both pressure (threat) and state (condition). The pressure index is comprised of a utilisation index (50% weighing) and a susceptibility index (50%). The state index is comprised of an ecosystem integrity index (70%), a water and sediment quality index (10%), a fish health index (10%), and a habitat condition index (10%).

The Coastal CRC is a collaborative joint venture between a number of Commonwealth, State (largely Queensland) and private organisations. The inventory can be accessed through the National Audit's website: www.nlwra.gov.au (checked September 2003). The CRC published a pamphlet in 2001 called " Australia's near pristine estuaries; assets worth protecting" which is (Sept 2003) available from their website: www.coastal_crc.org.au.

The Commonwealth government agency Geoscience Australia has also compiled a separate national estuary inventory, named OzEstuaries, which can be accessed through www.ga.gov.au. This inventory contains a general condition index based on disturbance.

Queensland has two developing GIS database inventories which include estuaries: CHRIS (Coastal Habitat Resources Information System) is funded by the Department of Fisheries, and the Wetland Inventory is funded by the Queensland Environment Protection Agency (see references by Blackman). The Wetland Inventory uses the Ramsar definition of 'wetland', so includes estuaries and other shallow marine ecosystems.

New South Wales (Department of Land and Water Conservation 2000a; Bell and Edwards 1980) has published a State estuary inventory, as have Victoria (Environment and Conservation Council 1999) and Tasmania (Edgar et al. 1999).

Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia have not published State estuary inventories; however regional studies exist (see for example references by Hodgkin and Clark, and Pen 1997).

The tropical river inventory and assessment project recently funded by LWA and DEWR includes an analysis of northern estuaries.

Estuarine protected areas have been surveyed by Kriwoken and Haward (1991) (Tasmania only) and by Ivanovici (1984). Both these references are now out of date

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Appendix 8. Australian approaches to waterway assessmentEdited and augmented extract from Nevill and Phillips 2004. Jon Nevill 10 January 2005.

Introduction:Just as a cook needs to know what’s in the parlour, corporate managers assess their assets before planning the year ahead. You have to know what you have in order to use it and protect it effectively. The same principles apply to natural resource management. Any strategic asset management program must have information on asset type, location, value and condition. Ad hoc approaches to resource management may have worked in the early 1900s, but they do not work in today’s environment of scarce resources and pervasive threats. Inventories of freshwater ecosystems are essential to supply information about natural assets to regional, State and national resource managers. These issues are discussed in more detail in Chapters 5 and 6 of Nevill and Phillips 2004 The Australian Freshwater Protected Area Resourcebook. A central recommendation of that book is that the development of State and national ecosystem inventories be accelerated and expanded – partly to support effective regional natural resource planning, and partly to underpin the development of representative systems of freshwater protected areas.

The purpose of this summary paper is to provide a snap-shot of different approaches to waterway assessment used in Australia, largely by expanding Table A5.2 from Nevill and Phillips 2004 into the larger Table A below. This snapshot is still not fully comprehensive, and readers are referred to Chapters 5 and 6 (mentioned above) for more detailed information. Please email me with information on gaps in either Table A from this paper, or omissions in Chapters 5 and 6 of Nevill & Phillips 2004.

National programs: (for State programs, see the table below, and Appendix 4 of Nevill & Phillips 2004)

The National Water Quality Management Strategy (NWQMS) is a strategy developed jointly by the Commonwealth and the States through working groups directed by ministerial councils. The strategy has been endorsed by key national agreements such as the CoAG Water Reform Agreement 1994. The national guidelines developed under the NWQMS cover water management issues across the whole of the water cycle – protection of aquatic ecosystems, drinking water quality, water quality monitoring, groundwater management, rural land uses, stormwater, sewerage systems and effluent management for specific industries. A total of 19 guideline documents had been released by the close of 2003. Of these, one document is central: the water quality guidelines first published in 1992, and re-published in a revised version in 2000.

When the NWQMS Guidelines were reviewed in 1999 a new approach, focused on ecologically-based management, was taken (Hart et al. 1999). The revision (ANZECC & ARMCANZ 2000) added three new dimensions to the guidelines, making them:

ecosystem-based (guidelines are ecosystem-specific as far as possible). issue-based (guidelines focusing on problems caused by stressors rather than the

individual indicators). risk-based (the guidelines numbers are re-named ‘trigger values’ and a decision

framework is proposed to assess the likelihood of adverse effects and the need for additional information).

The Guidelines recognise six environmental values, and establish recommended guideline trigger values (eg: levels of concentration for the contaminant in question) for the first four of those values. For more details on the NWQMS see Nevill and Phillips 2004 section A3.15.

The national (Land and Water Australia) Guidelines for protecting Australian waterways 2002 (Bennett et al. 2002) offer comprehensive and detailed management-oriented advice on waterway classification and valuation, as well as the assessment of impact and prioritisation

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of management actions. These guidelines are in tune with current thinking on protection of ecosystem services and the valuation of ecological assets, and are discussed further in the table below.

The Commonwealth-funded National River Health Program's (NRHP) objectives are to: provide a sound information base on which to establish environmental flows; undertake a comprehensive assessment of the health of inland waters, identify key areas for the

maintenance of aquatic and riparian health and biodiversity and identify stressed inland waters; consolidate and apply techniques for improving the health of inland waters, particularly those

identified as stressed; develop community, industry and management expertise in sustainable water resources

management and raise awareness of environmental health issues and the needs of our rivers.

The primary foci25 of the NRHP are: the development and implementation of procedures to monitor river health, and (b) the development of environmental flow methodologies and programs. The program is directed and funded (from Natural Heritage Trust funds) through the Department of the Environment and Heritage, the Commonwealth’s environmental agency.

The NRHP collects macroinvertebrate data from river systems throughout Australia. Individual site data is grouped to characterise reference condition, then formalised using the AUSRIVAS (Australia) model software. Models are calibrated to allow comparison of macroinvertebrate assemblages between reference (relatively ‘pristine’) and impacted sites, and ratings are developed and reported. The NRHP data fed into the National Land and Water Resources Audit program.

The National Land and Water Resources Audit (another Commonwealth funded initiative) used a philosophy similar to that adopted by Victoria’s Index of Stream Condition (ISC) (Ladson et al. 1999) to develop a more general Assessment of River Condition (ARC) Index - which includes catchment disturbance data - to deliver a national framework for the assessment or river condition, reporting at a reach scale. The National Audit project used catchment disturbance data from the national Wild Rivers Database along with much other data generated specifically for the project.

Both the ISC and the ARC Index share a philosophy where waterway condition is assessed independently of any special values the waterway may have (unlike the approach taken by Bennett et al. 2002). Condition is assessed by the use of quantitative indicators which reflect both primary drivers of ecosystem health (such as hydrology) as well as indicators that represent direct measures of ecosystem function (such as invertebrate indices). The ISC combines five indicators of river health: hydrology, water quality, physical form, the streamside zone, and aquatic life. The National Audit project reported an integrated ARC Index, also made up of five key indicator groups: hydrology (including change in seasonal period, seasonal amplitude, flow duration curve, mean annual discharge), water quality, physical habitat, catchment disturbance, and biota. The biota data in the initial Audit report was limited to AUSRIVAS macro-invertebrate data of the NRHP, but this framework is being expanded. The ARC Index was developed in the knowledge that a considerable amount of modelled data, rather than measured field data, would be used to obtain a reasonable degree of national coverage. A primary difference between the ARC and the ISC is that all five sub-indices are integrated to a single assessment in the ISC while the ARC combines the environmental sub-indices and keeps them separate from the biota index. Thus, the ARC reports the ARCE (environment) and the ARCB (biota) as the response variables.

Similar indices for wetlands and aquifers are not in general use in Australia, although Spencer et al. 1998 have trailed a wetland condition index. This is an area where further work is needed. An Index of Wetland Condition (IWC) is under trial in Victoria. According to Papas and Holmes 2004a: “Condition, based on the Ramsar definition of ecological character, will be measured against a reference, and the index will be structured on the primary components that define wetlands: soils, hydrology and biotic communities, and the wetland catchment. The IWC will be a standard rapid assessment method for wetland

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condition in Victoria, and will be straightforward and cost-effective to apply”. See also Papas and Holmes 2004b, and Holmes and Papas 2004.

The Audit project developed a national system for assessing river condition, and provided the national data set through a public internet site. One aim of the Audit was to assist in identifying conservation management priorities for each basin in the intensive landuse zone.26 Outside areas of intensive land use there are, at present, insufficient data to support either the ARC index or the ISC. An important application of the ARC Index from the National Audit was the ‘Snapshot of the Murray-Darling Basin River Condition’, which made an important contribution to the landmark decision by the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council to retrieve water for the environment (the 'Living Murray' program).

The Audit also funded a national assessment of water allocation and use in each major drainage basin. The extension and refinement of this dataset (as well as the development of a national freshwater ecosystem inventory) is essential to effective regional NRM planning. These data sets will be especially important with respect to the management of cumulative impacts of incremental water-based development – including farm dams, groundwater bores, levee banks and ground levelling, the drainage of wetlands, and the clearance of native vegetation. NRM planning offers a strong framework for cumulative impact management, and it is disappointing that the bilateral agreements underpinning Australian regional NRM planning fail to identify the strategic principles necessary for effective cumulative impact management (see updated version of Nevill 2003).

Table A8.1 Summary of Australian methods for waterway assessmentAdapted from Dunn 2000, Qld EPA 2000, Phillips et al. 2001, Nevill 2001, and Bennett et al. 2002. References are listed in the separate web-based bibliography attached to Nevill and Phillips 2004 – www.onlyoneplanet.com.au > documents > freshwater. Note that this table does not include methods for assessing environmental flow requirements; for this information see: Arthington and Zalucki 1998 for a summary of environmental flow assessment techniques, and King et al. 2003 for approaches to monitoring environmental flows. The table also excludes discussion of the National Water Quality Management Strategy due to its complexity (see discussion above). Acknowledgements: see Nevill & Phillips 2004.

Method Method category

Technique Focus / criteria

National Land and Water Resources Audit.

Assessment of condition.

Uses an ecosystem framework to bring together biological data measured in the National River Health Program (AUSRIVAS) with measured and modelled data on catchment disturbance, hydrological change, habitat change and water quality to provide assessments at the reach scale. Use was made of the Wild Rivers Database. Ref http://www.nlwra.gov.au/ . Includes OzEstuaries Data (see below).

hydrology; water quality; physical habitat; catchment disturbance; biota (AUSRIVAS).

OzEstuaries Database.

classification (value) and condition.

Database developed by Geoscience Australia (GA) and extended by the Cooperative Research Centre for Coastal Zone, Estuary and Waterway Management (CRCCZEWM). Threat discussed in a pressure / response framework. Ref: Nevill and Phillips 2004 s.5.5.4, and national audit website (see above).

catchment disturbance aquatic disturbance implicit value

measurement through naturalness criteria.

National important wetlands directory.

Value and importance;- collates State data.

The Directory of important wetlands in Australia (Environment Australia 2001) assembles State data on wetlands of national importance. Value and importance criteria are established. Ramsar wetlands form a small set of the total wetlands listed. Sparse condition data.

representativeness eco or hydro processes vulnerable life cycle critical habitat threatened species cultural / historic

National River Health Program – AUSRIVAS.

Biological condition.

Collects macroinvertebrate data from river systems throughout Australia. Individual site data is grouped to characterise reference (semi-‘pristine’) condition then formalised via AUSRIVAS model software. Models are calibrated to allow comparison of macroinvertebrate assemblages between reference and impacted sites. Ref http://www.lwa.gov.au/

Macroinvertebrates used to: assess river health; infer environmental

impact; provide an indirect ‘river

type’ reference.

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Method Method category

Technique Focus / criteria

National Wild Rivers Database.

Assessment of condition and naturalness value

Utilizes a ‘river wildness’ index comprising nation-wide data of various disturbance indicators, mostly collected from the States. Data are combined using a spatially referenced model to give all river sections across the country a score along a continuum of disturbance. Indices of catchment and in-stream (flow) disturbance form the basis of the overall score. Unlike other large-scale assessments it is weighted heavily to emphasise the pristine or wild end of the scale. Ref: river condition database at http://www.heritage.gov.au/anlr/code/arc.html

Assess naturalness using: catchment disturbance waterway disturbance.

(National) Guidelines for protecting Australian waterways.

Ref: Bennet et al. 2002.

A 'toolbox' approach to classification & assessment of value and condition.

The guidelines aimed to provide:• a systematic and adaptable approach to protecting waterways and floodplains; • implementation tools to support application of the approach; and• assistance with setting priorities for protection and repair.The guideline develops an action-oriented management framework aimed at protecting identified values, using value weight factors and action triggers or thresholds. Sustainability is assessed through concepts of ecosystem stability and vulnerability, attached to management response.

Assess value using: naturalness representativeness diversity / richness rarity special features.

Assess condition by: measuring impacts (from

reference condition) of threatening processes on identified values.

(National) Interim Freshwater Regionalisation of Australia.

classification Tait (2002 and 2004) has proposed that the existing Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia, and Interim Marine and Coastal Regionalisation of Australia be expanded with a third regionalisation - aimed at identifying regions containing repeating patterns of similar freshwater ecosystems. Such a regionalisation would support the identification of CAR freshwater reserve systems. Based largely on Unmack 2001.

obligate freshwater vertebrates (mainly fish)

recognises potential to use macro-invertebrate data from AUSRIVAS;

does not generally accommodate existing IBRA regions.

Sustainable Rivers Audit of the MDB Commission.

Valley zone (upland transport, lowland) condition assessment.

Three initial indicator themes being implemented; six-yearly reporting cycle for all 23 valleys in the Murray-Darling Basin. Three additional themes to be further developed in first three years 2005-8. Site data collection are used as surrogates to assess condition of a valley zone; statistical confidence limits to detect change are based on power analysis to detect ‘effect size’. Will include basin-wide comparisons of condition (referenced against natural) and trend between valleys. Tool for setting priorities in natural resource management in the Basin. Ref: www.mdbc.gov.au/

Initial indicator themes: fish; macroinvertebrates; hydrology.

Additional themes: physical form; riparian vegetation; floodplain health.

Index of Stream Condition (Victoria).

Assessment of condition and disturbance

A combined index of five sub-indices made up of measured indicators. Data for each indicator are scored, indexed and given numerical values based on a comparison with natural or reference conditions. The indicator scores are then combined to give an overall value. Most applicable to disturbed systems, but useful for naturalness value. Ref Ladson and White (1999).

hydrology physical form streamside zone aquatic life water quality

Land Conservation Council (Victoria) 1989-91

Natural, landscape and recreational value, with river type classification

Desktop evaluation and mapping of values by river basin. River types were classified into 39, then 16 major categories using hydrology and geomorphology overlays. Natural values mapped were characterised under three headings: (a) nature conservation – (a1) highly natural catchments, (a2) native fish rarity or diversity, (a3) botanical significance, (a4) geological or geomorphological significance. (b) landscape – (b1) high scenic value, (b2) waterfalls; (c) recreation – (c1) whitewater canoeing, (c2) car-based camping, (c3) recreational fishing for exotics, (c4) recreational fishing for natives. Ref: Land Conservation Council Victoria 1989: maps 11, 12 and 13; LCC 1991.

Classification: hydrology geomorphology limited ecological

considerations.

Values include: landscape natural recreation.

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Method Method category

Technique Focus / criteria

Stream regionalisations (Victoria) 2001.

classification Doeg (2001) and Metzeling et al.(2001) propose revisions of the 15 'representative rivers' identified by LCC 1991. Revisions based on ecological data, including AUSRIVAS and fish distribution data. Aimed at supporting a CAR freshwater reserve system.

vertebrate distributions macro-invertebrate

distributions; takes existing

regionalisation into account.

Victorian wetlands assessment.

Wetland classification

The Victorian Wetlands Database project classifies wetlands without attempting a conservation status analysis. Ref: Dept of Conservation and Environment Victoria (1992) An assessment of Victoria’s wetlands. DCE; Melbourne.

water salinity water permanence water depth. vegetation (sub-

categories).

Ecological vegetation class (EVC) mapping.

classification (value).

The Victorian Wetlands Database (see above) is separate from current mapping of Ecological Vegetation Class across Victoria funded by the Department of Sustainability and Environment. There are more than 60 distinct wetland EVCs in Victoria to date (ref: King et al. 2001; DSEV 2004). Value implicit in rarity, resilience (size) and naturalness.

vegetation class.

Index of wetland condition (Victoria)

Wetland condition

The Department for Sustainability and Environment (Vic) are developing a rapid assessment index of wetland condition. Index values will relate to reference benchmarks. Ref: Papas and Holmes 2004, Holmes and Papas 2004.

hydrology soil type biotic communities catchment disturbance.

Riverstyles (Gary Brierley - Macquarie Uni).

Assessment or river geomorphic type, value & condition

A regional-scale method for defining river types based on geomorphic characteristics This approach has been applied in NSW and Tas, and potentially provides both a geomorphic template for assigning conservation value, as well as providing an assessment of inherent geomorphic value and condition. Brierley et al. 2002, Brierley and Fryirs 2004.

geomorphology hydrology geology

Stressed Rivers (NSW).

Assessment of condition and conservation value

A sub-catchment level approach in which categories are derived through measurement of environmental and hydrological stresses, resulting in a matrix of stress classifications and management categories. Also identified rivers of high conservation value, using a criteria-based analysis. Refs: Government of NSW (1998); Chessman (2002)27.

water extraction; species of significance; remnant habitats; geomorphology.

State of the Rivers (WA.)

Assessment of condition and naturalness value

A method for mapping major forms of degradation within the State. Rivers are assigned 1 of 5 categories defining river condition to determine the feasibility for rehabilitation (if required), and to assist in establishing detailed State government management objectives. Ref: http://www.wrc.wa.gov.au/ .

pressures on rivers waterway disturbance

Wetlands Inventory of Queensland (Blackman)

classification and condition.

Ecosystem-based inventory of tiered classifications. Uses a multi-scalar method with a hierarchical data format. A general and adaptable approach - will support development of a CAR freshwater reserve system. Includes estuaries. Refs: Blackman 1992, 1995, 1999.

geomorphology hydrology vegetation water chemistry soil type

Water Resource Environmental Planning (Qld) – conservation value guideline.

Assessment of conservation value.

Part of a comprehensive approach to waterways planning and management. Values include ecology, geomorphology, hydrology, recreation, landscape and cultural heritage. Conservation value derived using a numerical approach for ecological criteria. A weighting system is used for combining indicators. Refs: Qld EPA (2000). See also www.nrm.qld.gov.au, and www.epa.gov.au.

naturalness; condition; bio and geodiversity; rare and threatened; uniqueness / rarity; cultural heritage.

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Method Method category

Technique Focus / criteria

State of the Rivers (Qld) (the Anderson method).

Condition assessment

A rapid assessment or ‘drive by’ method using trained reporters. Describes the condition of rivers using physical and biological criteria, including riparian and in-stream measures, and a scenic and recreational assessment. Uses a site-based proforma, with sites chosen as representative of homogenous reaches. Ref: http://www.nrm.qld.gov.au/ ; Anderson 1993.

reach disturbance; riparian vegetation; bank stability; bed / bar stability; aquatic habitat quality; aquatic vegetation health; scenic and recreational

value.

Freshwater Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program (Qld).

Condition assessment

Developed by the Coastal Zone, Estuary and Waterway Management CRC initially for waterways of southeast Qld, the method uses five indicator groups. Ref: http://www.coastal.crc.org.au/ehmp/freshwater.html. Assessments are reported in a ‘traffic light’ (good, bad and in-between) approach relative to minimally disturbed reference sites.

physical and chemical measures;

ecosystem processes; nutrients; fish; invertebrates.

Conservation of fresh water ecosystem values (Tas).

Ecosystem type, condition and value

Proposed CAR protected areas will be based on a tiered classification of freshwater ecosystems: the first tier comprises six classes: rivers (and streams), waterbodies (lakes and dams), wetlands, saltmarshes, estuaries and karst (underground freshwater ecosystems). The second tier of classification uses both physical and biological attributes. Assessment of freshwater values is based on three assessment criteria of naturalness, representativeness and distinctiveness. Condition measurement is based on naturalness. Ref: http://www.dpiwe.tas.gov.au/ .

representativeness threatened spp or

ecological communities high species diversity natural refugia centres of endemism geomorphic rarity.

Tasmanian estuary assessment.

classification value and condition

Study used both local and catchment land use disturbance indicators as well as water quality and biotic indicators where available to assess conservation significance of Tasmania’s estuaries. Ref: Edgar et al. 1999.

catchment disturbance aquatic disturbance implicit value

measurement through naturalness criteria.

Pusey et al.(1999)

Ecological value

Developed for rivers in the wet tropics of Queensland, the method uses 10 criteria, 7 of which relate to nominated flora and fauna groups. Uses an unweighted rating system and reports the overall conservation value as green, red or amber, based on rules of combination.

Ecosystem function Flora and fauna of

conservation interest

Invertebrate diversity

Flow regime

Fish Habitat Areas Qld’s Fisheries Act 1994

no information to hand

no information to hand. no information to hand.

Land and Water Australia ‘Monitoring and Evaluation Framework.’

no information to hand.

no information to hand. no information to hand.

Stream health index (Reef-rainforest CRC) - A Arthington - under development.

no information to hand.

no information to hand. no information to hand.

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Table A8.2 Summary of methods for waterway assessment used overseas. (Table adapted from Qld EPA 2000, Dunn 2000, and Phillips et al. 2001)

Name of Method

Category of Method

Technique Focus/Criteria

SERCON (UK) (System for Evaluating Rivers for Conservation)

Ecological value

A broadly based technique for assessing conservation value. Uses six criteria which are relevant to nature conservation assessment. River Habitat Survey forms part of method, followed by a scoring system with weightings.

Naturalness Representativen

ess Physical

diversity Species richness Rarity Special features

River Habitat Survey (UK)

Condition assessment

Assesses habitat quality of rivers and streams based on their physical structure. Uses a data base of habitat requirements, site/reach classifications and association of flora/fauna with different habitats. [Note: currently being integrated with SERCON].

Bank and channel physical attributes Land use Understorey

vegetation Riparian trees Channel

Dimensions Additional

Features

RIVPACS (UK)

Conditionassessment

The RIVPACS software package predicts the macroinvertebrate fauna to be expected at a river site in the absence of environmental stress. The model compares the observed with the expected fauna, to assess the biological quality of a site. [Note: RIVPACS was the basis for AusRivAS].

Macroinvertebrates used to:

Assess biological quality

Infer environmental impact

Wild and Scenic Rivers (US)

Conservation and recreation value

Applies to rivers in a free-flowing condition, and evaluated on the basis of one or more outstanding scenic, recreation, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, or cultural values.

Wild (naturalness)

Scenic Recreational

Heritage Rivers

(Canada)

Conservation and recreation value

A co-operative program developed by the Canadian provincial, and territorial governments to identify and preserve rivers of importance. The criteria for preservation range from natural heritage (physical attributes, geography, flora, fauna etc) to indicators of Canadian history and recreational appeal. See Appendix 14 for more details.

Physical attributes

Significant flora and fauna

Historical Recreational Naturalness

‘Expert System’ approach to the assessment of rivers (South Africa)

Conservation value

A method for assessing the major conservation attributes of rivers and communicating these in a conceptually simple manner

Naturalness/condition

Diversity or richness

Rarity/uniqueness

Special features

A protocol for assessing natural values of New Zealand rivers (NZ)

Ecological value

Provides a description of ecological values using a numerical, expert panel assessment method.

Naturalness/condition

Diversity or richness

Representativeness

Rarity/uniqueness

Special features

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Table A8.3Possible sources and methods of information collection in regard to ecosystem representativeness.After Dunn 2000.

Attribute Indicator / evidence Information sources

Representative river system or section.

River system or section typical of bioregion. Remote sensing, airborne video, river styles assessment, river habitat survey.

Representative river features.

River features typical of river type or style. River styles assessment, river habitat survey.

Representative hydrological processes.

Fluvial and hydrological characteristics typical of that class of river processes.

Long-term, continuous and consistent datasets only available for certain river types.

Representative aquatic macroinvertebrate communities.

Biota typical of macroinvertebrate communities for the river type and region.

AusRivAS, surveys.

Representative in-stream or riparian flora or communities.

In-stream or riparian macrophyte communities typical of biota for the river type and region.

AusRivAS, surveys.

Representative in-stream fish communities.

Fish communities typical of the river type and region.

Biotic Index (fish) NSW.

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Appendix 9. Wetland values (ecosystem services) generic list

Draft – pers comm. Janet Holmes, Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment

Table A9.1 Wetland values.Value ExamplesScientific and educational

Educational activities and opportunities Scientific reference area/site Long-term monitoring site Major scientific study site Type and extant locality for a taxon

Land value Land value due to presence of wetlandBiodiversity

Supports a variety of all life-forms including plants, animals and micro-organisms, the genes they all contain and the ecosystems of which they form a part

Representativeness (including naturalness)Rarity or uniqueness Threatened wetland type and/or supports threatened species and/or ecosystems/community supports significant % of threatened species supports high quality threatened species habitatMaintaining bioregional diversity (endemic species, high ecosystem diversity, high species richness)Maintaining species populations: supports a significant proportion of a species of plant or animal eg. 1%

of the species populationImportance for fauna at critical phases of the life cycle or in adverse conditions colonially nesting waterbirds important migratory waterbird habitat drought refugeImportance for abundance of fauna in certain groups (waterbirds, migratory waders, fish).

Storage and delivery of water

Wetland capacity to store and deliver water

Food Sustenance for humans (e.g. fish)Fresh water Drinking water for humans

Drinking water for livestock Water for agriculture Water for industry

Wetland products (raw products)

Biochemical products (refined products)

Genetic materials (refined products)

Timber Fuel wood Honey Livestock fodder Commercial fishing Seed and cuttings Extraction of materials from biota (e.g. eucalyptus oil) Medicines Genes for tolerance of certain conditions (eg. salinity) Genes for resistance to plant pathogens Ornamental species

Maintenance of natural hydrological regimes

Groundwater recharge and discharge

Wetting and drying regime

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Table A9.1 Wetland values (continued).Value ExamplesProtection from flood/storm damage

Retention of soils (erosion) Prevention of physical changes such as bank slumping. Moderation of peak flows Flood control Protection of built assets

Material processing/cycling/treatment

Sediment deposition and retention Retention, recovery and removal of excess nutrients and pollutants

(natural and artificial)Climate regulation Regulation of greenhouse gases, temperature precipitation and other

climatic processes

Support organisms that provide biological control of pests and diseases

Support of predators pests in natural and modified ecosystems (e.g. ibis feeding on grasshoppers)

Recreation and tourism

Recreational fishing and hunting Water sports and activities Picnics, outings, touring Nature observation Nature-based tourism

Spiritual and inspirational

Inspiration Cultural heritage (historical and archaeological) Spiritual and religious significance Sense of place Existence value Appreciation of natural features (aesthetics)

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Appendix 10. Conservation of Freshwater Ecosystem Values Project, Tasmania

Jessemy LongDepartment of Primary Industries, Water and Environment, TasmaniaJuly 30, 2003. Extract from Nevill & Phillips 2004

The Conservation of Freshwater Ecosystem Values (CFEV) Project has been initiated by the Tasmanian Government as part of the Water Development Plan for Tasmania. The Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment (DPIWE) is responsible for the Plan. The development and implementation of a strategic framework for the management and conservation of the State’s streams, waterways, and wetlands is identified as an integral part of the Water Development Plan.

The project will consider in its scope the following ecosystem types: rivers, lakes and wetlands, saltmarshes, estuaries, and groundwater dependent ecosystems.

The project aims to develop a Freshwater Conservation System for Tasmania, based on the reserve-design principles of comprehensive, adequate and representative protection (CAR Principles), in order to achieve the following outcomes:

a coordinated system for the recognition and conservation of freshwater ecosystem values that can be used for water management planning;

increased conservation of high priority freshwater ecosystem values in areas under both Crown control and private land;

increased confidence on behalf of government, industry and the community that high priority freshwater ecosystem values are appropriately considered in the development and management of the State’s water resources; and

increased ability for Tasmania to meet national obligations for protection of freshwater ecosystems.

Primary goalThe project aims to develop a Freshwater Conservation System for Tasmania that will: identify areas of significant conservation value and prioritise the implementation of their

protection through a range of management tools; promote an active conservation ethic within the full range of management mechanisms

for the State's freshwater dependent ecosystems; provide a strategic framework for the conservation of freshwater dependent values that

integrates with existing planning and regulatory instruments (eg water management and NRM planning);

recommend a range of management tools to conserve a full range of natural aquatic plant and animal species, physical features and ecological processes; and

be utilised by Tasmania's water management decision-making bodies to enable future water developments to proceed with confidence that significant freshwater values are not being degraded.

(Ref: DPIWE website 16/9/03)

Currently protected areas occupy 40% of the land area of Tasmania. The extent that management of existing protected areas conserves Tasmania’s freshwater ecosystem values is not well understood. High priority freshwater ecosystem values also occur outside existing protected areas and on private lands. While the design of the project’s Freshwater Conservation System will be based on CAR Principles, the establishment of reserves will only be one management component of conservation. Implementation of the Freshwater Conservation System will be achieved using a full range of management prescriptions on both Crown and private land. This includes, for example, the integration with existing planning and regulatory instruments such as water management and natural resource management (NRM) planning; the creation of formal reserves; and the negotiation of voluntary conservation agreements with private landowners through covenanting of titles.

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The conservation of freshwater dependent ecosystem values will require consideration of local activities, upstream activities and catchment management. An analysis of threats will identify the appropriate scale and type of management required for the protection of individual and grouped freshwater dependent ecosystem values.

The CFEV Project commenced in late 2002 and has received funding from both the State Government and the Commonwealth through the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. This funding will enable the project to:

undertake a statewide audit of freshwater dependent values through the development of a GIS database;

to identify areas of significant conservation value; and

to recommend appropriate management tools.

Implementation is expected to commence in mid-2004. Further funding will need to be sought post-2004 to enable full-scale implementation, in particular, the continuation of the negotiation of voluntary conservation agreements with private landowners, as this will be the most resource-consuming form of implementation.

Additional goalsThe development of a Freshwater Conservation System is guided by a series of environmental, social and economic goals, which include: to provide a Freshwater Conservation System that takes into account a broad spectrum

of activities, including recreation, tourism and the use of resources;

to protect threatened, rare or endangered species, ecological communities, and the habitats critical for their survival;

to provide for special biological and physical values;

to protect areas of special significance including:1. High species diversity;2. Natural refugia for flora and fauna;3. Centres of endemism;4. Geomorphic diversity; and

to facilitate the restoration of degraded ecosystems of high conservation value.(Ref: DPIWE website 16/9/03)

There are three phases in the establishment of a Freshwater Conservation System for Tasmania: Identification, Selection and Implementation. The project is currently progressing along the first phase.

Identification will largely involve the statewide audit of freshwater dependent values and the establishment of a GIS database. This includes the development of a robust scientific classification of the State's freshwater dependent ecosystems based on information about the biology, hydrology and geomorphology. The project will be using existing environmental data where practical to undertake this classification and will undertake data modelling where sufficient data is not available. Any significant gaps in available data will be identified by the project and recommended for future inclusion.

Criteria:As part of the audit, the project will then undertake the assessment of freshwater values based on the assessment criteria of Naturalness, Representativeness and Distinctiveness. These criteria were derived from Dunn (2000) and developed in consultation with the project’s Reference Group, whose membership includes scientific consultants and stakeholder representatives from Hydro Tasmania, Forestry Tasmania, Tasmania’s Farmers and Grazier’s Association, Tasmanian Conservation Trust, Tasmanian Fishing Industry Council, Tasmanian Aquaculture Council and Inland Fisheries Service. The project is currently in the process of conducting the statewide audit and in the assessment of current

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protection and threats to the State’s freshwater values. From this information and from the statewide audit the project can then identify appropriate protection tools and identify targets for conservation.

Naturalness, representativeness and distinctiveness are assessed using indices of relevant components or drivers. For example, a naturalness score is derived from a hydrology index (dependent on catchment disturbance and abstraction indices), a native vegetation index (dependent on riparian and wetland vegetation indices), a sediment input index (dependent on catchment disturbance) and a water quality index (dependent on catchment disturbance and land use nutrient indices (DPIWE 200528).

Selection:The second phase of Selection will involve the selection of appropriate management prescriptions for a full-range of freshwater values (from degraded to pristine systems) identified by the statewide audit, and the selection of areas of significant conservation value. The Freshwater Conservation System will therefore identify where freshwater ecosystem values exist and highlight appropriate management prescriptions for a range of values, thereby allowing future developments to proceed with confidence that significant freshwater values will not be degraded. Conservation of significant freshwater values can be achieved through different levels of protection, from joint management that recognises existing uses to formal reservation.

Implementation:The final stage of Implementation will involve the development of a staged implementation strategy that prioritises the implementation of management prescriptions for areas of significant conservation value. The project will also be required to develop a process for ongoing management and review of the Freshwater Conservation System and GIS database. Representatives of key stakeholder groups will provide input into the prioritisation of implementation and have been actively involved in the design of the Freshwater Conservation Systems since the beginning of the project through their attendance at regular meetings of the project’s Reference Groups.

The project team has made a number of partnerships within the Tasmanian Government framework. For example, GIS support needed to undertake the statewide audit of freshwater ecosystem values is to be provided by the GIS & Information Management Unit (DPIWE). Technical advice from specialists, from both within and outside Government, is regularly provided to the project through their involvement in a number of Scientific Working Groups and through meetings of the project's Departmental Working Group. The project has also formed a partnership with the Protected Areas on Private Land Program (operated by the DPIWE) to assist with the negotiation of voluntary conservation agreements with private landowners. It is anticipated that implementation will also be undertaken in partnerships Tasmania’s newly created NRM Regional Committees.

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Appendix 11. Australian Wild Rivers:Extract from Nevill & Phillips 2004.

The Commonwealth of Australia Wild Rivers project used disturbance as core identification criterion.

Wild Rivers’ was a national program initiated by the Commonwealth Government in 1993, with the primary objectives of identifying and encouraging the protection of rivers that remained largely unaltered by European settlement (Stein et al., 2001). It did not specifically identify high-conservation-value ecosystems or include wetland ecosystems.

The Wild Rivers Project systematically identified Australia’s wild rivers, and developed guidelines for the management of wild rivers. The project developed two indices, one for catchment disturbance and another for flow disturbance. These indices were calculated for river reaches, partly using Commonwealth databases (such as CAPAD – Collaborative Australian Protected Area Database) and partly using data supplied on request from State Government agencies. Maps were then produced showing overall levels of river disturbance, with each river reach for which data was available grouped by index range..

A wild river, as defined by the project, is: a channel, channel network, or connected network of waterbodies, of natural origin and exhibiting overland flow (which can be perennial, intermittent or episodic) in which:

the biological, hydrological and geomorphological processes associated with river flow; and

the biological, hydrological and geomorphological processes in the river catchment with which the river is intimately linked,

have not been significantly altered since European settlement.

Wild rivers that flow underground for all or part of their length (eg: through karst) are included.

Although lists of wild rivers were produced for each jurisdiction, strategic protection of identified rivers and river reaches never eventuated

The database was later revised on a low-key basis at the Department of Environment and Heritage, and is now entitled the Australian River Catchment and Condition database. This reflects that fact that the principal ongoing interest in the data-base is in its use as a strategic level indicator of condition across all watercourses on the continent, rather than the project's other brief of identifying significant rivers which were in particularly good condition29. The data was built on by the National Land and Water Resources Audit Assessment of River Condition project.

The original consultants (ANU CRES now incorporated within the Fenner School of Environment and Society) prefer to refer to it as the river disturbance database, as the link between the indices of anthropogenic disturbance and river condition is not fully understood, and in fact the full effect of these disturbances may not be evident in terms of river condition for many years (Stein et al. (1998); Stein et al. (2002)).

An upgrade to the wild rivers database sits within the continental landscape framework developed by the Fenner School to support the systematic identification of priority streams for conservation across Australia. The framework incorporates a hierarchical environmental classification with the disturbance indices as indicators of naturalness built upon a spatially nested, hierarchical catchment reference system. The classification groups streams on the basis of the shared similarities of key abiotic attributes that drive hydrological, geomorphological and ecological processes and hence are responsible for observed patterns in stream characteristics at landscape scales. The consistent and comprehensive characterisation of streams that this framework provides enabled a review of the comprehensiveness and adequacy of the National Reserve System (Stein, 2006) and will

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assist other conservation assessment tasks including evaluation of ecological value criteria (eg: representativeness, uniqueness, naturalness) and the design of biological surveys. (Stein, 2006). The framework is currently being revised to reflect recent improvements in the drainage analysis on which it is based. Calculation of the wild rivers disturbance indices will incorporate more current disturbance information where it is readily available nationally. However, a more comprehensive revision of the wild rivers database will require additional resources. Further development of this database remains a priority.

Most rivers meeting the full "Wild Rivers" criteria in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania are those already protected by large terrestrial reserves. Due to the low level of development of Australia’s northern rivers, this is not true nationally – with only 13% of the length of the least disturbed streams falling in existing conservation reserves, 27% on Aboriginal managed land, 16% on vacant crown land and 36% on private land. Nearly 50% of streams flowing through nature conservation reserves were disturbed to some extent, for example, by upstream landuse.

The two most useful maps / datasets deal with (a) a catchment disturbance index, and (b) flow disturbance. Flow disturbance includes consideration of both weirs and dams, levee banks and water abstraction30.

From the point of view of river management in general, perhaps the most important features of the wild river data are that the disturbance information can assist in identifying rivers of high ecological value, and assist in the reserve selection process once representative rivers and wetlands have been identified. Conversely, rivers with highly disturbed catchments and flows need priority attention in programs designed to manage cumulative impacts, or to rehabilitate ecosystems.

The Wild Rivers project published a guideline document) Conservation Guidelines for the Management of Wild River Values. Environment Australia, Canberra, 1998. The document addresses the conservation management of wild rivers (and in fact any river or stream with high natural values) by:

discussing the impacts of a range of activities on wild river values outlining some principles for wild river management, and providing a Code for wild river management.

The guidelines have been developed with the objective of assisting management authorities to maintain the integrity of Australia's remaining wild rivers, where a decision has been made to manage the rivers for their wild river values.

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Appendix 12. Australia’s protected rivers:Extract from: Nevill, J (2005) Counting Australia’s protected rivers. http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/FWPA_protectedRivers.htm. Accessed 1 July 2007.

How many Australian rivers have adequate protection from threats to their biodiversity? 'River' and 'protection' may be defined in different ways. This paper uses a loose definition of protection related to disturbance of catchment and flow, and in particular discusses rivers where a large proportion of the river's catchment lies within a formal protected area. A more rigorous definition of protection would examine the particular values of each river, and the degree to which current management arrangements protect such values - however such an investigation is well beyond the scope of this paper, as the necessary data is not available at the national scale. Definitions of 'river' relate to the size of the catchment and/or the river's hydrology. 

Protection from alien species is sometimes impossible. However in some cases rivers can be protected from flow modification and catchment disturbance. Location within a formal protected area, however, does not necessarily confer a high level of protection on aquatic ecosystems: active protective management is necessary both within and beyond the protected area itself (Pringle 2001). Several techniques are available for managing highly connected linear protected areas (Saunders et al. 2002).

Apart from protected area controls, several major legislative mechanisms provide limited protection for rivers and their catchments in Australian States. All States have:

fishery statutes which can control fishing activities;

statutory mechanisms to protect threatened species and ecological communities;

statutory mechanisms aimed at the control of both point- and area-source water pollution;

statutory land use planning controls, including project assessment mechanisms; and

mechanisms of varying effectiveness aimed at the provision of river environmental flows.

These mechanisms are discussed in some detail in Nevill & Phillips 2004: chapter 7.

Australia has around 1400 named rivers, relatively few of which are well protected. The Australian 1:250,000 scale map series shows just under 3 million km of rivers and streams. Of these rivers and streams, only about 111,000 km (or roughly 4%) are dam-free, with 100% of their upstream catchments protected by reserves. Most of these are very small headwater streams, many of which are intermittent or ephemeral. Of Australia’s 166,018 km of named rivers, only 14,517 km lie within reserves, and of these just under 3000 km ( ~ 2%) are dam-free from headwaters to outlet (Stein, unpublished data). Here 'reserve' is defined as areas classed under the IUCN protected area definition as categories I-IV. Note that this figure is smaller than the comparative figure of total protected landscapes due to the existence of bias caused by several very large protected areas in arid regions, and the ubiquity of dams on major rivers. 

A detailed examination of the conservation status of river ecosystem types is likely to show that many riverine ecosystems have little or no effective protection under current arrangements.

Substantial highly protected rivers:Perhaps not surprisingly, Australia's protected rivers tend to be clustered within a few large terrestrial protected areas.  

Tasmania's Southwest World Heritage Area protects most of the catchments of the Spring, Davey, New, and Louisa Rivers, as well as several smaller rivers including the well-known Franklin. Well-known river systems in this region, such as the Gordon River and Lake Pedder, have been flooded by hydro-electric dams.

The Northern Territory's Kakadu National Park protects most of the catchments of the West Alligator and South Alligator Rivers, as well as Obiworbby Brook. The South Alligator is

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Australia's largest protected river. The Garig Gunak Barlu National Park (Coburg Peninsula) protects significant streams such as Ilamaryi River and Mawuwu and Alaru Creeks; these are however small compared with the South and West Alligator Rivers. Most of the catchment of the East Alligator River lies in land under the custodianship of Aboriginals. The high biodiversity values of these areas are currently being eroded by the introduced cane toad, which is continuing its spread from east to west across the northern part of the Australian continent (in the tropics and sub-tropics).

In Queensland, the Jardine River National Park protects a large part of the Jardine River's catchment, and the upper Coen River receives substantial protection from Mungkau Kandju National Park. The lower Coen is not protected. 

The Rudall River, in Western Australia's Rudall River National Park, is an important protected ephemeral river within Australia's arid interior. Western Australia has two other large protected rivers: the Prince Regent River is substantially protected by the Prince Regent River Biosphere Reserve, and the Shannon River by the Shannon River National Park. 

In New South Wales, the Nadgee Wilderness Area protects the Nadgee and Merrica Rivers. 

Rocky River and Breakneck River (although not perennial) are protected within South Australia's Ravine des Casoars Wilderness Protection Area, Kangaroo Island. 

Small but highly protected rivers and creeks:Many smaller rivers and creeks across the nation receive some level of protection from Australia's existing protected area network. Some of these have extremely important biodiversity values.

Victoria was until recently the only Australian State with a statute aimed specifically at river protection. While this legislation appears to be poorly implemented, the "B1" catchment listed under the Heritage Rivers Act 1992 does protect the entire catchments of two small coastal rivers, the Benedore and Red Rivers in East Gippsland. These lie within the Croajingalong National Park.  Wilson's Promontory National Park protects the small but important Darby River.

Queensland's Fraser Island (Great Sandy National Park and Great Sandy Conservation Park) protects several important streams, including Yidney Creek. Cape Melville National Park protects Saltwater Creek.

The Northern Territory's Garig Gunak Barlu National Park (formerly Coburg Peninsula National Park) protects Mawuwu Creek and Alaru Creek, and the small Ilamaryi River.

Copper Mine Creek (protected by the Fitzgerald River National Park) and Weanerjungup Creek (protected by the Cape Arid National Park) are also worthy of specific mention amongst WA's protected rivers.

Large protected river reaches:Australia has a number of large protected areas which provide a high level of protection to significant river reaches; however, either upstream or downstream, these rivers receive little or no formal protection.

These areas are: *  Drysdale River National Park (WA); *  Gregory National Park (protecting parts of the Victoria River, NT);*  Keep River National Park (NT);*  Limmen National Park (protecting lower reaches of the Limmen Bight River, and   upper reaches of the Towns River, NT);*  Straaten River National Park (Qld);*  Mungkan Kandju National Park (protecting parts of the Coen River Qld):*  Lakefield National Park (protecting parts of the lower North Kennedy River and    some of the upper Normanby River, in Queensland.

Not listed above, but nevertheless of importance, are a group of adjacent reserves, including the Wollemi National Park north west of Sydney, which protect some of the smaller headwaters of the Colo and Hunter Rivers. The large national parks to the immediate west

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and south of Sydney, covering deeply dissected sandstone plateaus, also protect important headwater biodiversity.

Many of the rivers and streams of the Great Dividing Range in the far south east (Victoria and New South Wales) have been damaged by hydro-electric developments and unsympathetic forestry, although some important headwater streams are nevertheless protected to some extent by the adjacent Kosciusko (NSW), Alpine and Snowy River (Vic) National Parks.

The importance of identifying which rivers are protected:The identification of protected rivers is an important precursor to more advanced river protection policy development. A particularly important issue is the extent to which representative river ecosystems are protected. This paper presents a preliminary overview, but does not attempt to address this latter issue. A more detailed systematic analysis should be undertaken using existing information. A careful comparison of national river and catchment spatial data with protected area databases should provide considerable additional information on which undisturbed Australian rivers (and river segments) are already protected: this study has been commenced within the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University. 

Further investigation of the values and condition of protected rivers is urgently needed, along with studies of aquatic and riparian biodiversity hotspots, as well as headwater biodiversity. A national conservation status assessment of Australia's inland aquatic ecosystems is another important priority; such a study is likely to highlight serious deficiencies in the protection of riverine ecosystems.

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Appendix 13. Absolute and relative importance scales:This appendix discusses relative and absolute approaches to categorising importance, and discusses the way importance categories are likely to be, or should be, distributed across a national assessment of ecosystem importance.

The value of a particular site can be expressed as measured against a given yardstick (absolute) or expressed relative to the importance of other sites.

A relative approach:If a quantitative procedure can be developed to express site value, say on a scale of 0 – 100, then every site can be assessed and given a rating (given availability of the necessary data). This assumes that a comprehensive site inventory exists (or can be constructed) containing information on all relevant factors in a form which can be expressed, say, as quantitative indices. This approach was used in development of the Wild Rivers Database (Appendix 11), in New Zealand’s Waters of National Importance project (Appendix 15) and in the Tasmanian Conservation of Freshwater Ecosystem Value project (Appendix 10).

By way of illustration, a hypothetical scheme could use seven value criteria, each expressed as an index from 0 to 10. This might be combined with an integrity index from 0 to 30 (Appendix 5). The integrity index itself might have sub-components relating to size, shape, and catchment management factors such as percentage of natural flow diverted, presence of alien species, water pollution, and a riparian vegetation disturbance index – somewhat along the lines of the Index of Stream Condition (Appendix 8). A combined index having a value range from 0 to 100 would result from this approach. A log scale may prove more useful than a linear scale in achieving an intuitively-reasonable distribution of importance categories.

Once all sites were assessed, a value frequency distribution over all sites could be derived. At this point, to identify sites of international, national, regional and local value, arbitrary decisions are still necessary in regard to the cut-off points. For example, the regional range might be identified as the top 30th percentile (inclusive), the national importance range might be the top 10th percentile (inclusive), while the top percentile might be classed as internationally significant. Such a distribution could be represented by Figure 1 below, and appears intuitively reasonable.

Such a system has two major problems if considered in the national context. Firstly, the sites identified as internationally significance would inevitably differ from those identified with the currently used Ramsar criteria, to which Australia is committed through both its support for the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and through the EPBC Act (Appendix 14). This might create considerable confusion amongst users of the classification. Although not impossible

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to address, ensuing problems could be complex and could take some time to resolve, and the benefits uncertain in any case. Secondly, assembling the national data to support such a system, although an important priority, is not likely to occur for some time.

An absolute approach:In a world where the values, condition, structure, function and composition of every ecosystem were known, a more rigorous science-based approach might be possible.

Internationally important sites might be defined as those sites whose ecological functions and services could not be removed without significant loss to the planet as a whole. Sites of national and regional significance might be similarly defined, if the meaning of ‘significant’ could be suitably quantified.

The problem with this approach is that the availability of such complex and comprehensive information is so far outside even the foreseeable future as to render the idea fanciful.

A more workable absolute approach is that taken by New Zealand (Appendix 15). Firstly, they adopted a much simpler two-part importance scale: (a) of national importance, and (b) everything else. The NZ project’s basic approach was to define “national importance” (in the context of freshwater biodiversity) as involving the identification of sites comprising a minimum area that could protect at least one example of every identifiably distinct freshwater ecosystem – allowing that such a list should be enlarged if necessary to include habitats of endangered species.

This approach is systematic and quantitative, and should remain a long-term model for Australia as a national inventory is developed. An additional point to consider, however, is that the resulting importance scale is truncated, with only two levels.

So… the interim approach suggested in this paper is to use absolute criteria which can be assessed using standard guidelines. This approach follows directly in the footsteps of the Ramsar and DIWA criteria (Appendices 2 and 3).

Broadly, this paper recommends that sites of international, national and regional significance be identified using Ramsar, DIWA and HCVAE criteria, respectively.

However, a comparison of the criteria (Table 1. in the main paper above) shows that the DIWA criteria are very similar to the Ramsar criteria, from which they were derived. A significant difference, expanding the scope of the DIWA criteria, is that they contain a specific reference to plant populations (Criteria 4). Nevertheless, even taking this into account, the set of ecosystems covered by the DIWA criteria is likely to be only slightly larger than the set covered by the Ramsar criteria. We should note here that we are not discussing Ramsar or DIWA lists, but Ramsar and DIWA ‘candidate sites’ – that is: sites which meet the criteria but have not necessarily been formally listed (see the discussion above regarding New Zealand listed and candidate Ramsar sites).

Again, comparing the Ramsar and DIWA criteria with the HCVAE criteria, a strong overlap is apparent. The most significant difference is that the HCVAE criteria contain a discussion of disturbance – as an indicator of ‘naturalness’. However, given that the proposed application guidelines will define the interpretation of ‘disturbance’, a tight definition would close the gap between the DIWA and HCVAE ecosystem sets, again producing only a slightly larger HCVAE group. This would probably result in a distribution something like that illustrated in Figure 2. This does not appear to be a useful outcome. It essentially contracts the four-part importance scale, in practice, to a two-part scale (as used in NZ).

What would an intuitively-reasonable hierarchy look like? For the sake of argument, in a hypothetical nation having 80-100 bioregions, bearing in mind the discussion above and the approximate model of Figure 1, we might expect perhaps 1000 sites of international importance (Ramsar ‘candidate’ sites) plus 9,000 sites of national importance (DIWA ‘candidate’ sites). If one small State of this hypothetical nation had 17,000 lentic wetlands (see Appendix 5), and if this nation had inventoried 1000 substantial estuaries with many

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small estuaries unlisted (see Appendix 7), and if this nation had mapped around 3,000,000 km or rivers and streams (Appendix 12) containing more than say 30,000 distinct ecological reaches, it may not be unreasonable to suggest that the national total of all mappable natural aquatic ecosystems (including lentic, lotic, subterranean and estuarine) would be somewhere in the range 100,000 – 300,000.

Again for the sake of argument, if this nation has 1000 sites of international importance, plus another 9000 sites of national importance, and 100,000 sites of local importance, how many regionally important sites might be expected? Accepting the essentially arbitrary nature of these categories, perhaps 20,000? (Figure 1.) Unfortunately, due to the similarity between the Ramsar, DIWA and proposed HCVAE criteria, application of these criteria within a national inventory may well produce a hierarchy of something like 1000, 1200 and 140031 (Figure 2), leaving many ecosystems of regional importance, particularly with respect to the supply of ecosystem services and ecological connectivity, wrongly classified as having local importance.

the simplest solution to the problem created by the similarity of may be to make one or two small changes to both the DIWA and proposed HCVAE criteria, and resolve the remaining issues through the development of application guidelines:

the DIWA criteria could be reviewed and expanded, most easily by incorporating a new criteria based on disturbance32, or by relaxing existing quantitative population levels in the last two criteria (for example, use 0.2% rather than 1%);

the proposed HCVAE criteria could be left as stated above, but used (through the application guidelines) with a relaxed definition of ‘disturbance’, as well as relaxed definitions pertaining to some of the remaining criteria (such as ecological or evolutionary importance)... or

alternatively, a new HCVAE criteria could be introduced: “large natural ecosystems whose condition has demonstrably degraded as a result of disturbance, but where restoration or rehabilitation is viable and economically practical.” This criteria could be used in tandem – given suitable guidelines33 – with the other seven criteria.

An alternative approach, suggested by Dr Janet Stein (ANU) when reviewing this paper in draft, is to introduce a new criterion:

The ecosystem has high irreplaceability value: i.e. there is a high likelihood that the ecosystem will need to be conserved to achieve comprehensive and adequate protection of biodiversity.

This suggestion has the advantage that it moves the recommended interim approach towards the recommended long-term approach, as it incorporates NZ’s second principle (systematic complementarity) at least in a limited fashion.

This new principle could be worded for inclusion in a revision of the DIWA criteria, and, in a slightly different form, as an additional criterion in the HCVAE list. This could be done by introducing a bioregional / sub-bioregional frame of reference:

Using this approach, a new DIWA criterion could be introduced:

The ecosystem has high irreplaceability value within a bioregional context: i.e. there is a high likelihood that the ecosystem will need to be conserved to achieve comprehensive and adequate protection of biodiversity.

At the same time a new HCVAE criterion could be introduced:

The ecosystem has high irreplaceability value within a sub-bioregional context: i.e. there is a high likelihood that the ecosystem will need to be conserved to achieve comprehensive and adequate protection of biodiversity.

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Dr Stein also comments, in relation to the NZ WONI approach: “We can apply a similar approach in Australia – we have the spatial framework (stream segments/ reaches, catchments), river environment classifications, and at least one biogeographic classification (Unmack’s fish) – others could be developed for macroinvertebrates and other groups. Queensland and Victoria have already done so. We have information on important wetlands eg for waterbird breeding, broad location information for threatened species etc - in short I am confident we have enough information to apply a systematic approach with additional input and verification via expert workshops (though maybe only the latter for subterranean systems).”

On the whole, Dr Stein’s approach with regard to the additional critieria seems to have most to recommend it.

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Appendix 14. The Environment and Biodiversity Protection (EPBC) Act 1999:

Extract from Nevill and Phillips 2004:

Under the Australian constitution, most resource management decisions rest with State governments. However, the EPBC Act, following extensive negotiations in 1990 leading to the InterGovernmental Agreement on the Environment (IGAE) 1992, provides for Commonwealth involvement concerning issues of national importance.

The Act defines matters of national environmental significance (which include Ramsar-listed wetlands, listed migratory species, and threatened species34). The approval of Minister for Environment is required for actions likely to have a significant impact on these matters. The Act also contains environmental impact assessment provisions, and applies throughout Australia – not just on Commonwealth land.

The Act also provides for use of bilateral environmental agreements between the Commonwealth and individual States, supplementing the use of multilateral agreements such as those underpinning biodiversity, ecologically sustainable development, and forest strategies, as well as the InterGovernmental Agreement on the Environment. Bilateral agreements are easier to negotiate, and are not constrained by the 'lowest common denominator' effect. They have the potential to provide ‘progressive’ jurisdictions with additional Commonwealth assistance in some areas - giving both States and the Commonwealth some extra flexibility in program development.

The EPBC Act provides an overarching assessment and approval process for all activities which may impact on matters of national environmental significance, including Ramsar-listed wetlands. Administrative Guidelines exist which assist in determining whether an action should be referred for assessment. In determining the impact of an action, other impacts and current environmental condition can be considered, thus (at least in theory) allowing cumulative impacts to be taken into account. The EPBC website contains these guidelines and other useful information: http://www.environment.gov.au/epbc/ .

The EPBC Act Part 3 Division 1 (matters of national environmental significance) and Part 15 (protected areas) Division 2 (wetlands of international importance) provide for the protection of wetlands of international importance, and extend the very limited powers the Commonwealth has under the Australian constitution for area management. Under the Act, the Commonwealth has statutory power to designate wetlands for inclusion in the Ramsar Convention List (s 326). This provision applies broadly, and is not restricted to land owned or managed by the Commonwealth. Under ss 16-17 the Commonwealth can declare a wetland to be a ‘declared Ramsar wetland’ which is an interim listing while the wetland awaits formal designation under Article 2 of the Ramsar convention. The Commonwealth can only invoke these powers if it is convinced that the wetland is of international importance (according to Ramsar criteria – see Appendix 2) and that its ecological character is under threat (s 17A).

Once an area is declared or designated, actions which will have, or are likely to have a significant detrimental impact on the wetland are prohibited, unless specific authorisations or exemptions apply (ss 16, 17B). These provisions thus provide an avenue for Commonwealth authority over State land which is absent under Constitutional arrangements alone. An important point to note here is that, implicitly, the Ramsar definition of ‘wetland’ applies, thus providing Commonwealth authority over both flowing water (rivers and streams), some subterranean aquatic ecosystems, and shallow marine waters (eg: estuaries).

Amendments introduced to the EPBC Act in 2003 extend these provisions by allowing the Commonwealth to list places (including, for example, important freshwater ecosystems including rivers) under a list called the National Heritage List. Once on this list, a river could

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be protected under the Commonwealth powers invoked by the Act in a similar way to that described above for Ramsar sites. Criteria for inclusion on the List are not described in the Act (see more detail below).

This ability of the Commonwealth to protect important State sites without the consent of the States has not yet been used, and for obvious reasons the Commonwealth will be reluctant to use these provisions except in circumstances having a very high public profile. Indirectly, however, the existence of the possibility of Commonwealth intervention provides an additional incentive for States to enter bilateral agreements with the Commonwealth directed at sustainable use of natural resources and conservation of nationally and internationally important sites – as exemption provisions can be written into bilateral agreements. The existence of these powers also provides an incentive for the States to cooperate with the Commonwealth in programs aimed at achieving a national approach to the conservation of Australia’s most important freshwater ecosystems, such as those outlined in Chapter 10 of Nevill & Phillips 2004.

Both the EPBC Act and bilateral Commonwealth-State agreements and MoUs may allow the Commonwealth to take action where required action is not being taken by the State. The legal action taken in 2004 by the Commonwealth in relation to landowner clearing in the Gwydir Wetlands presents an example of Commonwealth legal action in a situation where the State government (NSW) had chosen not to enforce its own protective legislation. The substantial failure of the NSW government to enforce its native vegetation protection legislation was documented on the Australian Broadcasting Commission Radio National Background Briefing of 14/9/2003.

Several discharge springs from the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) and some other aquatic ecosystems are listed as ‘threatened ecological communities’ under the EPBC Act – another protective mechanism albeit not very effective at present. While in theory the EPBC Act can protect against major new developments which may constitute a threat to an area’s values, it cannot force proactive biodiversity management35, and it cannot control a multitude of small widespread activities draining water flows from a site. Many GAB springs, known to include endemics (Ponder 2004) are already extinct as a result of groundwater drawdown resulting from over use of artesian water36. The extinctions of these invertebrates have not received media coverage, but symbolise a major weakness in the government’s biodiversity protection framework.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act requires persons undertaking an activity that is likely to involve the killing, injuring, taking, trading, keeping or movement of a listed species in inland waters in a Commonwealth area to obtain a permit. It is possible that water infrastructure (such as irrigation works) which is likely to cause movement of a listed species could fall within these provisions.

The 2003 amendments to the EPBC Act 1999.According the Department of Environment and Heritage Australia website (accessed on 18/9/03) the 2003 amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act introduced a number of important changes. These changes:

establish, for the first time, a truly national scheme for the conservation of Australia's unique heritage assets;

significantly enhance the protection of nationally significant heritage places;

through an open and transparent process, create a new National Heritage List containing places of truly national heritage significance;

provide, for the first time, substantive protection for places on the new National Heritage List;

contain provisions requiring management plans for nationally-listed places;

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ensure the assessment of heritage significance will be carried out by an independent body of heritage experts, the Australian Heritage Council, established under its own legislation;

apply an efficient and timely approval process in relation to actions that may have a significant impact on a National Heritage place;

develop a separate list of heritage places in Commonwealth areas;

require Commonwealth agencies to develop heritage strategies and processes for identifying and protecting heritage places in Commonwealth areas;

ensure that when a Commonwealth agency sells or leases land containing a National or Commonwealth Heritage place, the heritage values of the place are protected; and

ensure the existing Register of the National Estate continues to be recognised for the purposes of public education and the promotion of heritage conservation generally.

The National Heritage List was established in 2004 to list places of outstanding heritage significance to Australia.

Each place in the List is assessed by the Australian Heritage Council as having national heritage values which can be protected and managed under a range of Commonwealth powers. A place entered in the National Heritage List would be a National Heritage Place.

The National Heritage List is compiled and maintained by the presented Department of the Environment and Water Resources on an electronic database, accessible through the Department’s website.

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Appendix 15. The NZ ‘Waters of National Importance’ project.In early 2003 the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment, as part of a wider (whole of government) Water Programme of Action, initiated a project called the New Zealand Waters of National Importance Project (including both inland and marine waters). Policy commitments to ensure sustainable development underpin the Programme. The primary task of the project is the identification of waters of national importance. Protection for biodiversity values forms a component of this project. Within the Programme, three projects are of particular interest. The following box is an extract from a pamphelt (see citation below) published by the NZ Department of Conservation in 2003:

PROJECT 3: POTENTIAL WATER BODIES OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCEThis project will develop a list of water bodies that may be considered to have nationally important values, both now and in the future. Water bodies will be assessed against the following values: tourism irrigation energy generation industrial uses recreation natural heritage, and cultural heritage.

PROJECT 4: HOW TO DETERMINE THE NATIONAL INTERESTIf something is ‘in the interests of all sections of the community at the national scale, now and in the future’, then it’s considered to be in the national interest. This project will draw together the results of the three strands of the Water Programme of Action – water allocation, water quality, and the potential water bodies of national importance projects. Principles and processes for determining the national interest in water, and how they can be used in decision making will be recommended.

This project will: identify how we can determine the national interest in water and how we can get the best

results from water management; encourage partnerships and sector participation in determining the national interest; assess how the needs of different groups should be recognised in determining the

national interest; and identify how the national interest would feed into decision making – now and in the

future.

PROJECT 6: IDENTIFY WATER BODIES OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCEThis follows on from project three, which developed lists of potential water bodies of national importance. This project will identify the ‘Water Bodies of National Importance’ and agree on the values to be secured in those water bodies. The process for the project will be heavily consultative and will rely on partnerships with major sectors.

Elements include: identifying complementary values and mutually exclusive values for each candidate

water body; identifying the risks to the values if there was no Crown intervention; agreeing on the overall list of Water Bodies of National Importance and the values to be

secured; and developing options for new tools, or changes to existing tools to secure the values of the

Water Bodies of National Importance.

Source: Ministry for the Environment, New Zealand (Nov 2003) The Water Programme of Action. Four-page leaflet. Ministry for the Environment; Wellington.

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Chadderton, WL, Brown, DJ, and Stephens, RT (December 2004) Identifying freshwater ecosystems of national importance for biodiversity – discussion document. Department of Conservation New Zealand, Wellington.

BOOK REVIEWJon Nevill 9 February 2005

The Chadderton report represents a critical milestone in efforts to establish adequate protection for New Zealand’s most important rivers. The report seeks to identify rivers of national importance in relation to biodiversity (geodiversity will be considered separately). In doing so, it highlights difficulties in providing comprehensive protection for freshwater ecosystems inherent in the current state of scientific knowledge. It also highlights a long-standing and continuing failure by the NZ government to adequately resource freshwater conservation programs – given a stated goal to arrest the decline of the nation’s freshwater biodiversity. Such major difficulties are magnified in the Australian context, where attempts to provide such protection lag seriously behind NZ programs (Nevill and Phillips 2004, Kingsford et al. 2005).

To understand the report and its short-comings, it must be seen against its policy backdrop.

The NZ Government is committed to a policy of the sustainable use of the nation’s natural resources, and within this general commitment lies the Government’s ‘Sustainable Development Programme of Action for Freshwater’ (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, January 2003). The Waters of National Importance (WONI) program is one of three central themes of the Programme of Action. The WONI program, as well as identifying natural heritage values (the focus of the Chadderton report) covers cultural, tourism, recreation, irrigation, energy production, and industrial-use values.

The Chadderton report’s title reflects the original scope of the WONI natural heritage investigation, however the reality is that this report focuses on river systems (river catchments) rather than attempting to cover all freshwater ecosystems37,38. Both biological and physical diversity within river systems has been addressed in the report.

NZ’s Reserves Act 1977 and NZ’s Biodiversity Strategy 2000 contain commitments39 to “protect the full range of remaining biodiversity (species, natural habitats and ecosystems) and maintain viable populations of all indigenous species and sub-species”, and this commitment forms the backbone of the report’s attempt to define river systems “of national importance”.

At this point it should be noted that, globally, a more or less coherent terminology for identifying value level has evolved using a hierarchy of the following terms: international, national, (regional) and local. This terminology is discussed in more detail in Nevill and Phillips 2004 Appendix 7. The terms (levels) are differently defined in different contexts.

The report implies that Chadderton et al. started by defining “national importance” in the context of aquatic biodiversity as involving the identification of a minimum area that could protect at least one example of every identifiably distinct freshwater ecosystem – allowing that such a list would be enlarged if necessary to include habitats of endangered species. However, in practice this definition appears to have produced a list which was ‘unacceptably long’ when assessed against the authors’ judgements about what is likely to be politically feasible. However, it is stated in the report that to capture 100% of distinct river system types would require a major expansion of the identified areas.

There is insufficient direct data of biodiversity in NZ to allow full characterisation of a minimum set of areas necessary to achieve comprehensive protection of biodiversity. This situation is typical globally, and is certainly the case in Australia as well as NZ. As is usual, biodiversity surrogates were used in the Chadderton report.

The investigation started by developing a freshwater bioregionalisation at the national scale. Freshwater bioregions have been identified in North America (Abell et al. 2000, 2002). In the

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Australian context, there have been recent calls for the development of such a bioregionalisation in Australia (eg: Tait 2002; Nevill and Phillips 2004; Tait 2004) – however at this stage no definitive Australian study has been undertaken or planned. The NZ bioregionalisation identified 15 regions in the North Island and 13 in the South, plus Stewart Island – 29 in all. “The biogeographic framework identifies geographic units that are likely to have experienced similar physical disturbance regimes, and have shared source populations and pathways for colonisation, or geographic barriers to the dispersal of freshwater biota” (Chadderton et al. 2004: 6). New Zealand is younger and geologically more active than Australia, and the NZ bioregionalisation emphasised the separation of historic factors (such as glaciation and tectonic uplift) that have influenced biotic patterns (usually operating at a regional or national scale) from the influence of the contemporary environment. This emphasis is subtly different from Australian terrestrial bioregionalisations, but could well apply to further attempts to define Australian freshwater bioregions.

By definition, bioregions contain repeating patterns of similar ecosystems. They represent the broadest scale of biodiversity surrogate, and capture medium-scale (but not small-scale) climatic variation. In some instances (such as the south west coast of Tasmania) entire bioregions can be offered reasonable levels of protection – and where this is the case the use of finer scale surrogates is unnecessary in formulating protective strategies. However, for obvious reasons this is usually not practical. Surrogates based on finer scale variables must be used to prioritise areas within bioregions for special protection.

The Chadderton report used an existing classification of river-system type – the River Environmental Classification (REC) (Snelder and Biggs 2002) to provide this next layer of surrogate information. “A total of 4706 river catchment units were defined at five hierarchical levels, representing catchments or major tributaries nested within larger catchments” Chadderton et al. 2004:5. The report states that the REC was simplified for this study by the removal of climate and land cover variables – yielding 215 river classes for the South Island and 154 for the North Island (page 23).

According to Chadderton et al. (2004:6): “… each river [catchment] class should contain unique elements of biodiversity (ie: distinctive communities or specie assemblages) so capturing a full range of environments (river classes) should therefore ensure representation of a full range or biological diversity”.

If straight representation was the only critical element, choosing the smallest group of distinct river classes within each bioregion (on the basis of the size of mapped river (catchment) classes) would have produced a minimum set of important areas. However, such an exercise would not have accounted for the quality of the selected areas, nor would it account for the habitats of rare or endangered species, or the important landscape connectivity functions of rivers. Chadderton et al. tried to build these criteria into the selection process. Issues excluded by their analysis include the viability or integrity of the chosen units (the ability of the chosen river catchment units to retain their value over time – partly dependant on size), and the issue of redundancy: protecting only one river catchment unit of each type exposes the protected area network to damage by extreme events, or the likelihood of deliberate destruction (at some time in the future) of important biodiversity values within a specific protected catchment (through major water use developments, for example). In practice, however, some redundancy has been achieved, as each new catchment selected contains a combination of new river classes as well as some that have already been selected (Chadderton et al. 2004:40). The issue of connectivity between the chosen units themselves also appears to have been ignored, although connectivity to major protected wetlands (Ramsar sites, for example) was taken into account. This issue was considered but not resolved by the study team.

Each river catchment unit (from the 4706 mentioned above) was given a single natural heritage score (an index called the natural heritage value or NHV) by combining:

measures of environmental representativeness measures of pressure (human impact) a score based on the presence of endangered species, and a score based on connectivity to nationally important wetlands, estuaries and lakes.

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This combined index was named the ‘index of natural heritage value’.

The pressure measure used was a combination of indicators of: percentage natural land cover degree of urbanisation land use intensity impediments to fish passage impacts downstream of dams (such as cold water discharge) presence of exotic fish, and significant point source pollution.

According to Chadderton et al. (2004:7): “… a final candidate list of catchment units was derived on the basis of one or both of two rules:

the site was listed in the minimum set required for representation of 100% of the river classes (in each bioregion), and listed among the top ten sites ranked by natural heritage value within the bioregion; and / or

the site contained special features (ie: endangered species, floodplain forests), or was connected to a nationally important wetland, lake or estuary.”

These rules contain logical problems. For example, issues of endangered species and connectivity are built into both rules, resulting in unnecessary and confusing logical redundancy. Another issue is that the use of the word ‘and’ in the first rule (rather than ‘or’) is likely to reduce the chosen catchment units below the target of full representation. In fact, this resulted in 76% rather than 100% coverage of distinct unit types (Chadderton et al. 2004:7). The second rule implies the use of arbitrary trigger values for special feature indicators. As already mentioned, inter-catchment connectivity, catchment unit integrity, and unit redundancy are all ignored or under-emphasised by the use of these two rules. The use of a selection rule to include only the top ten units as measured by the natural heritage index appears to be an arbitrary mechanism to limit the size of the selected set. Why chose 10? Why not 50? or 5? Why not ‘x’ where x is twice the number of unit types in that particular bioregion? It should be noted, however, that the total area contained in the proposed WONI catchments (including the “Type 2” areas necessary to capture habitats of endangered species) appears (on cursory examination) to be in excess of half the total land area of NZ (figure p.7). It should be noted that, while the expanded list containing both Type 1 (representative river types) and Type 2 areas does in fact capture around 90% of distinct river system types, Chadderton et al. do not expect that high levels of protection would be broadly applied to Type 2 areas. Instead specific strategies would be applied within these areas to protect discrete sites and populations.

The use of “number of major point source pollution discharges” as a component of the pressure index also takes no account of the pollutant type or load – a major problem. Indices of ambient water quality (derived from biomonitoring or invertebrate studies such as Australia’s AUSRIVAS program) would seem to offer more appropriate information.

A logical problem also relates to the use of the proportion of the catchment upstream or downstream of a dam as a component of the pressure index and thus the NHV. In both cases the NHV decreases with either increasing proportion upstream or increasing proportion downstream (Chadderton et al. 2004:20). Thus a dam high in the catchment will have the same effect on the NHV as a dam low in the catchment – an apparently inconsistent result. The logic behind this rule attempts to cater for both downstream impacts (sediment loss, cold water discharge, flow alteration) versus upstream loss of habitat which impacts on around 50% of NZ fish fauna. These are valid concerns; perhaps measures more specific to particular areas could be developed in future.

The way connectivity is treated also appears to underplay the role of rivers in supporting wetlands, as the NHV score increases by only 0.001 for each connection to a nationally significant waterbody! This score was arbitrary, chosen as a 10 percentile value of the index. As an aside, connectivity is also underplayed in Australia, where a number of

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management plans for Ramsar-listed wetlands do not even mention environmental flows from supporting rivers!

It can also be argued that the approach taken to identifying candidate river systems is not precautionary. According to Chadderton et al. (2004:37) “The resolutions of both the biogeographic classification and the river typology are more likely to under-estimate than over-estimate actual biological variation.” It should be noted that both the Australian and New Zealand governments are committed, by international conventions, to the use of the precautionary principle.

To address some of these shortcomings, the rules could be modified. At least two of each lowest order catchment unit type (REC) within each bioregion could be selected, thus producing protective redundancy. The four higher order REC types would be ignored in this analysis. The natural heritage index could be replaced by a simpler ecological integrity index (EII) which would combine indices of:

ecological resilience (size would be the most obvious resilience surrogate), current protection status (percentage of the catchment unit already within a

protected area), and measures of pressure (as above).

In choosing the two units of each type, a first cut would identify the two units carrying the highest EII values in each bioregion. However, this selection could be modified if necessary to ensure the inclusion of inter-connected catchment units, or catchment units containing habitat of either rare (restricted endemic) species, or endangered species or ecological communities, or catchments connected to nationally important wetlands, lakes or estuaries (or – ideally – subterranean ecosystems – if this information is available40). A dilemma relating to threatened species is that in many cases such species are in fact threatened by habitat degradation, which is often pervasive through developed catchments. This means that, while such a river class may have low general ecological value (due to its disturbed nature) it nevertheless needs protection to assist the survival of the species under threat.

A central objective of the report – to identify a fully representative set of the nation’s river systems, has not been met by the present methodology, although the authors may argue that this objective has been approached within the limits of practicality. As Chadderton et al. state (2004:7) “… integrated and rigorous conservation action [over the selected river catchment units] will help secure examples of freshwater biodiversity, but will not halt the decline in New Zealand’s freshwater biodiversity.”

The use of administrative mechanisms to protect WONI rivers is outside the scope of the Chadderton report. These issues are discussed in an Australian context by Kingsford et al. 2005, and Nevill & Phillips 2004: chapter 7.

Additional references:Abell, Robin A , Olson DM, Dinerstein E, Hurley PT, Diggs JT, Eichbaum W, Walters S,

Wettengel W, Allnutt T, Loucks CJ, and Hedao P (2000) Freshwater ecoregions of North America: a conservation assessment. Island Press; Washington (for World Wildlife Fund United States). ISBN 1-55963-734-X.

Abell, Robin A, Thieme, Michele, Dinerstein, Eric, and Olson, David (WWF-US Conservation Science Program) (2002) A sourcebook for conducting biological assessments and developing biodiversity visions for ecoregion conservation. Volume II: Freshwater ecoregions. WWF, Washington USA.

Cromarty P and Scott DA (1996) A directory of wetlands in New Zealand. Department of Conservation, Wellington.

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (2003) The Sustainable Development Programme of Action for Freshwater. DPMC, Wellington.

Environment Australia (2001a) Directory of important wetlands in Australia; third edition; Environment Australia; Canberra Australia.

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Kingsford RT, Dunn H, Love D, Nevill J, Stein J, and Tait J (2005) Protecting Australia’s rivers, wetlands and estuaries of high conservation value: a blueprint; Land and Water Australia; Canberra. Copies are available from http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/freshwater.htm.

Nevill, J and Phillips, N (2004) The Australian Freshwater Protected Area Resourcebook. OnlyOnePlanet Australia; Hampton Melbourne. Copies are available from http://www.onlyoneplanet.com/freshwater.htm.

Snelder, TH and Biggs BJF (2002) Multi-scale river environment classification for water resources management. Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 38: 1225-1240.

Tait, Jim (2004) Bioregional frameworks for assessment of freshwater biodiversity in Australia. Paper presented to the Conference on Freshwater Protected Areas, Sydney, September 2004, WWF Australia and Inland Rivers Network.

Tait, Jim, Choy, S, and Lawson, R (2002) Bioregional frameworks for assessment of freshwater biodiversity in Australia. Paper presented to the World Congress on Aquatic Protected Areas, Cairns Australia, August 14-17 2002.

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Appendix 16. Victoria’s Heritage Rivers program.Extract from Nevill & Phillips 2004.

Victoria and Queensland are the only Australian States which has specific legislation focused on the protection of rivers of special value: in Victoria’s case the Heritage Rivers Act 1992. Rivers designated under this Act complement rivers and wetlands protected (through both reservation and land-use planning mechanisms41) within the framework of the Victorian government’s wider system of terrestrial reserves, and its biodiversity and wetlands42 strategies.

Victoria’s Heritage Rivers Program was borne out of commitments to protect the values of the State’s rivers and wetlands contained in the 1987 State Conservation Strategy Protecting the Environment. The Strategy foreshadowed the referral of two freshwater issues to the Land Conservation Council: (a) rivers, and (b) wetlands. The first investigation (discussed below) was started in 1988 and finished in 1991. The second investigation (wetlands) which was to have commenced after the completion of the first investigation, was never started43.

The State Conservation Strategy set out the aims of the Heritage Rivers Program, to: protect those rivers and streams that essentially remain in their natural condition; ensure that rivers and streams of special scenic, recreational, cultural, and conservation

value are maintained in at least their present condition; and ensure that representative44 examples of stream types in the State are protected.

The selection of rivers listed in the Victorian Heritage Rivers Act, as well as the system of representative rivers, was based on an investigation and public inquiry process run by Victoria’s Land Conservation Council (LCC). The LCC sought scientific advice.

Macmillan and Kunert (1990) proposed a method to assess the conservation status and value of Victorian rivers. This was applied to East Gippsland rivers in Macmillan (1990). Conservation assessment was based on consideration of:

system naturalness ie changes in catchment and riparian land-use from those under natural conditions;

fish naturalness ie the extent to which exotic fish species are present; and the presence of identified geological and geomorphological sites of special interest.

Conservation value was assessed as the relative significance of a stream in national, state, regional or local terms.

The work of Macmillan was focused on protecting those streams with high conservation significance. Therefore only those stream systems that were 'essentially unmodified' or 'slightly modified' were rated. Streams with a greater degree of modification from natural conditions were not considered. Their river type classification used flow, slope, geology and a temperature surrogate.

The LCC subsequently examined and mapped rivers according to a variety of attributes, one of which was value. Values considered were:

nature conservation – (a1) highly natural catchments, (a2) native fish rarity or diversity, (a3) botanical significance, (a4) geological or geomorphological significance.

landscape – (b1) high scenic value, (b2) waterfalls; and

recreation – (c1) whitewater canoeing, (c2) car-based camping, (c3) recreational fishing for exotics, (c4) recreational fishing for natives. Codes from maps 11, 12 and 13 of LCC 1989;

It is important to note that the two outcomes of (a) 'heritage rivers' and 'natural catchments' and (b) the designation of ‘representative rivers’, protected within the scope of management plans45 - are conceptually distinct, and should not be confused - even though both originated

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within the Heritage Rivers Program. The first group are known as Heritage Rivers, and Essentially Natural Catchments, and are listed in the Heritage Rivers Act, while the second group are known as Representative Rivers and are not listed.

The Heritage Rivers and Essentially Natural Catchments were selected on the basis of natural (ecological and geomorphological), landscape and recreational/cultural values, while the representative rivers were selected as good examples of the river type (classification) derived by the LCC from Macmillan and Kunert’s work.

Neither the Heritage Rivers nor the Representative Rivers form a distinct reserve system in a formal way, as they overlay existing land status (in many cases parks and State forests). Management of both takes place within existing river management mechanisms. Management outcomes, unfortunately, have not been reported by the Victorian government since the system was created in 1992.

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Appendix 17: Peer reviews:

Peer review 1.Bill Phillips, MainStream Environmental Consulting

27 July 2007. Email: mainstream@mainstream.com.auTelephone: 02 62817470

Overview:

The issues this paper addresses have challenged natural resource managers globally and here within Australia for the better part of the last 50 years. With the onset of changing climatic patterns, bringing droughts in the Australian context especially, and over-allocation of water resources, the focus on finding ways to move strategically to see aquatic areas of high conservation value ‘protected’ has intensified.

Typically, each Australian state and territory has established its own ways and means of going about this task; and most remain resolutely wedded to these. All also have an array of legislative and other mechanisms for seeing such areas managed appropriately. However, there is little consistency between these approaches.

Then, at the international level there are conventions (the Convention on Biological Diversity, and Ramsar most notably) encouraging more systematic, national approaches to identifying and protecting high conservation value aquatic areas, and this has seen some 64 Wetlands of International Importance listed, and close to 900 wetlands (defined in Ramsar’s very broad way) recognised as being of national importance under the Directory of Important Wetlands of Australia (DIWA) process.

This discussion paper, and the process it forms part of, seems designed to try to move toward a more consistent national approach, so that the current ad hoc situation can become a thing of the past. I believe this discussion paper makes a very useful contribution toward that outcome, although, as outlined below there are several areas where the future process will need to take on board other dimensions. .

Comments in relation to specific parts of the Discussion paper:

International and national experiences The document makes a number of references to the work being done in New Zealand under the Waters of National Importance project (page 3 especially), which is entirely appropriate. As noted in Phillips and Butcher (2005), there is also work worthy of note being done in South Africa (see page 19 of that report) on this same issue, and it is suggested that ‘trading notes’ with those involved with that work could be instructive.

The discussion paper would also benefit from further consideration of the Queensland Governments’ Wild Rivers initiatives (especially), plus those of NSW and proposed for the Northern Territory. The Queensland initiative has seen a Wild Rivers Policy adopted, six rivers declared as ‘wild’ in February 2007, and a Wild Rivers Code developed. These recent developments are of some note in this context as they are a working example of one form of aquatic ‘protected area’ that could be advanced more broadly.

Proposed HCVAE criteriaThe discussion paper proposes seven criteria as the starting point for further consultation and these are broadly supported. Some comments on these:

It would help future practitioners with applying these criteria to define a number of terms they contain. Two of note include “good” (in Criterion 2) and “feature(s)” (in Criteria 3 and 4).

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Criterion 3 seems unwieldy with the drawing together of biodiversity considerations with geomorphic and geological feature(s). I would suggest either the merging of the latter into current draft criterion 5 (where these issues seem better placed), or the creation of a new criterion to accommodate them.

The draft criteria use language relating to several ways of application spatially (catchment, bioregion and landscape) and ultimately these will need to be harmonised or standardised to avoid confusion. This does raise the fundamental bug bear of work in this area for many years; namely, ‘what is the appropriate scale at which to seek to prioritise aquatic ecosystem assets ?’ The DIWA process now uses the IBRA regions and while this seems logical in one way, these were not developed with aquatic systems in mind. They are of course superior to using State and Territory boundaries as the first DIWA did. An alternative, (also now used by DIWA) which seems appropriate for surface waters at least, is drainage divisions-basins-catchments. This is unlikely to be helpful for subterranean and groundwater-dependent system of course. A more recent, and functional, regionalisation is that of NRM regions (56 of them I believe), and while the boundaries of these were not scientifically-determined, they exist as the primary implementation framework for advancing a systematic approach to identifying and then managing high conservation value aquatic ecosystems and so cannot be ignored. I say more about this below.

Application of identification criteriaPage 9 of the discussion paper addresses several aspects of this issue, with the third paragraph specifically looking at proposed next steps. My observations here, based on 20 years of working in government and now independently in the field of natural resource management, are as follows:

For this initiative to succeed it is vital that it be advanced by a mix of experts; from both within and outside government. It must be under an independent leadership group in order to overcome ‘States rights’ and parochialism factors that have made this agenda problematic to advance in the past. It must also move away from being seen as an initiative of the National Reserves System; meaning, dominated by people with expertise in (terrestrial) park management. While these skills are part of what’s needed, they need to be balanced by experts from aquatic science and management realms.

As highlighted above, the key players for delivery of this initiative at ground-level will now be the NRM regional bodies, most of which are investing heavily at present in inventory work and the development of prioritisation approaches for aquatic ecosystems. There is significant ‘re-invention of the wheel’ going on across the country using NHT funds, and this makes it urgent to progress this agenda with the NRM bodies, and also presents an opportunity for the Australian government to ‘steer’ the future direction immediately.

Classification of importanceHaving proposed criteria for site identification the Discussion Paper then considers issues relating to classifying the importance of sites. The suggestion to disregard “State level” significance is strongly supported, for the reasons outlined in the paper, and above.

However, where I believe the paper encounters some problems (as admitted by the author himself notably) is the application of the proposed HCVAE criteria alongside the existing Ramsar and DIWA criteria. Some observations here:

The Ramsar criteria have not been applied systematically across Australia (as also noted by the Discussion Paper, and Phillips in 2002 and Phillips et al, 2005 – reports to WWF Australia). While Ramsar uses a very broad definition of wetland, which can accommodate river reaches for example, these types of ‘wetlands’ have in general not been listed, nor have specific subterranean systems (despite Australia being the country in 1996 that sought to have ‘karst wetlands’ recognised by Ramsar).

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One fundamental weakness with the Ramsar listing approach (in my view) is that sites can be designated if they can be shown to qualify against one or more of the criteria. This means that any of the DIWA sites for example could be Ramsar listed, given the similarities between the two sets of criteria.

My view is that Australia should elect (as it has every right do for operational reasons) to require that sites proposed for Ramsar listing must qualify against 4 (or possibly 5) of the 9 Ramsar criteria. While there is no scientific basis for choosing 4 or 5, the intent is to ensure only the truly ‘jewel in the crown’ sites are Ramsar listed.

Having suggested the above, it is clear that the current Ramsar criteria do not embrace the full suite of issues raised in the proposed criteria for HCVAE put forward by this Discussion Paper. However, I believe it would be possible to have the Ramsar criteria sitting within (as a sub-set of) a larger list of Australian HCVAE criteria, with the above referred to conditions applying specifically for Ramsar listing (only against the Ramsar criteria).

Under this proposal, the Australian HCVAE criteria (including the Ramsar criteria sub-set) could then be used to determine DIWA, regional or local site of note. A sliding scale could apply whereby DIWA sites had to meet 3 (or 4) of the Australian HCVAE criteria, regionally important sites would need to meet 2 (or 3) of the criteria, and local sites, only 1 (or 2). Again, these numbers are quite arbitrary and have been chosen to illustrate a point. Such a sliding scale would overcome (in part at least) the difficulties highlighted in the Discussion Paper with harmonising these international and national criteria with some national system.

Connectivity and scale issuesAs noted by Phillips and Butcher (2005), one of the challenges with establishing aquatic ecosystem-based ‘protected areas’ is their reliance (in most instances) on connectivity, and that upstream impacts downstream can undermine efforts to conserve assets within small scale, or even quite large ‘protected areas’ (witness the condition of the Coorong and Lower Lakes Ramsar site at present – see Phillips and Muller, 2006). This is a point that at present neither the Ramsar, DIWA or proposed HCVAE criteria have addressed adequately. While at one level it is a management issue, at another it is a fundamental factor when ecosystem integrity is under consideration and means that issues of scale and connectivity need to be inherent within how the criteria (whatever form they take) are applied. This leads logically to the need for this processes to ensure a parallel consideration goes on to ensure that we don’t end up with a ‘sea of HCVAE islands’ which are at the mercy of upstream factors, localised landscape change factors or to groundwater extractions elsewhere.

While there is clearly a need to get the science right to help with strategic selection of sites (as noted by this Discussion Paper and Phillips and Butcher, 2005), this process needs to be informed by considerations of connectivity and long-term maintenance of integrity within the identified ecological assets.

Overlying this is the need to recognise who it is that will manage these areas once the science tells us they are worthy. Most are likely to fall on private lands, or at least contain them, and so a process to offer appropriate management options will be needed. Phillips and Butcher (2005) reviewed these issues of management options and scale, and followup work by these same authors is currently underway within the Murray-Darling Basin to see a ‘toolkit’ to support these management options developed.

Cited references

Phillips, B., 2002. What will Australia’s Ramsar site estate look like in 20 years time ? Discussion paper prepared for WWF Australia.

Phillips, B. and Butcher, R., 2005. River Parks: Building a system of ‘Habitat Management Areas’ across the Murray-Darling. An international and national review of freshwater ‘protected areas’ for conserving aquatic biodiversity and river health. Murray-Darling Basin Commission Publication No. 07/06.

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Phillips, B., Butcher. R., and Hale.J, 2005. Implementing the Ramsar Convention’s “Strategic framework for the future development of the List of Wetlands of International Importance” in Australia: Building a coherent and comprehensive network of Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar sites) across Australia – from the ‘bottom up’: Pilot testing an approach in the Wimmera Catchment Management Area of Western Victoria. Report prepared for WWF – Australia

Phillips, B. and Muller, K, 2006. Ecological character of the Coorong, Lakes Alexandrina and Albert Wetland of International Importance. South Australian Department of Environment and Heritage.

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Peer review 2.T. J. DoegEnvironmental Consultant

77 Union Street

Northcote

VIC 3070

(03) 94818130

Overall comments

The purposes of this paper are set out on page 2 of the report. These are to:

propose a set of principles to guide the selection of criteria for the identification of high conservation value aquatic ecosystems (HCVAEs);

propose a set of criteria for discussion; propose the use of criteria for the classification of importance; provide a background for these criteria by a brief identification, analysis and critique of

existing approaches, including a discussion of ecosystem integrity; and consider the value of a more rigorous long-term approach to assessing importance,

based on a comprehensive national inventory of inland aquatic ecosystems.

The paper proposes 6 basic principles to guide the selection of criteria with which to identify HCVAEs. Five of these are sound, and relate well to the overall objectives of aquatic system conservation. Basic Principle number 3 is not really a principle to guide the selection of criteria, but simply a restatement that criteria are required. I would be tempted to re-name the remaining principles with more explanatory titles:

1. Criteria must fit into a hierarchical approach to ecosystem protection;2. Criteria need to be based on a national inventory of aquatic systems;3. Criteria need to be based on widely accepted approaches (Principle No. 4 in paper);4. Criteria need to be conceptually simple, robust and stable(Principle No. 5 in paper); and5. Criteria should be compatible with international reporting frameworks (Principle No. 6 in paper).

The first is a timely and important philosophical statement about the need to “protect the best, but don’t forget about the rest” and the second reflects the need for comprehensive environmental data, without which, application of any set of criteria will be flawed.

The remaining principles are designed to guide the selection of a suitable set of criteria to identify HCVAEs, and form the basis of the rest of the discussion paper.

The authors clearly have wide knowledge of the various assessment approaches conducted throughout the world. The paper draws on numerous sources of information, both from Australia and from overseas. Appendix 8, in particular, demonstrates the wide variety of approaches used.

However, this does demonstrate that there are numerous approaches with a similar objective to the aims of the project, of which this paper is part.

The authors concentrate on one example for New Zealand to demonstrate some of the benefits and pitfalls of a national selection criteria system. In particular, if the criteria are set too broadly, then too many areas will be identified for a HCVAE system to be practical. This is wise advice, and could almost be included as an additional principle of selection. However, the logic and rationale of the New Zealand experience provides valuable guidance to this project, in particular:

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It specifies a scientifically-defensible goal, and sets out to achieve it using a comprehensive examination of national ecosystems. Selection rules are transparent, and quantitative indicators are used wherever possible

A brief review of the different Australian assessment criteria for subterranean, estuarine and “aquatic ecosystems” is provided (but see comment under presentation below).

I would like to have the conservation values that criteria need to encompass (from Appendix 9) brought into the body of the report to provide a focus for the next section, which involves detailing the actual set of proposed criteria. As the intent is to concentrate on natural (as opposed to cultural and historical values) it would be nice to have the list of values the authors propose as important with which to compare the criteria.

The paper then presents seven proposed criteria that can be used to identify HCVAEs. These are all sound and have variously been proposed or used for many years as part of other methods.

However, I do have some serious concerns with the breadth of some of the criteria, which are likely to lead to either too many areas identified or, more likely, a large number of “false positives”. In particular:

Criterion 3. The inclusion of the condition that the ecosystem “contains one of only a few known habitats of an organism of unknown distribution” is likely to lead to vast numbers of systems being identified. Particularly within the aquatic macroinvertebrates, many species have been described from one or two sites, but have not been recorded elsewhere – due to the lack of survey. There are a number of examples (e.g. the Otway stonefly, or the flatworm Spathula tryssa) that were listed under the Victoria FFG, based on the small number of recorded sites. Subsequent surveys found them to be extensively distributed.

Criterion 5. The ecosystem provides evidence of the course or pattern of the evolution of Australia’s landscape or biota. It could be argued that all Australian ecosystems provide such evidence, but even restricting the criterion to taxa with Gondwanan affinities will include many, many areas (think aquatic invertebrates).

Criterion 6. The ecosystem provides important resources for particular life-history stages of biota. By including food and habitat as an example of the resources, again, this includes all aquatic ecosystems – as all systems are important for part of the life-history stage of some plant or animal.

Criterion 7. The ecosystem performs important functions and services within the landscape (e.g., refugia, sustaining associated ecosystems). Again, depending on how it was defined, this could include everything – all remnant pools in rivers that remain during dry periods act as a refuge for one or more species in a river reach, sub-catchment or catchment.

Without quite detailed directions for implementation, application of the criteria at the broadest level will identify all Australian aquatic ecosystems as HCVAEs (exactly the problem the authors point out in the New Zealand scheme).

The authors seem to recognise this possibility (not explicitly in the text, but the discussion in Appendix 13 would indicate that the issue has been considered), and a logical hierarchical approach to split the number of sites between International, National, Regional and Local importance (from the discussion above, pretty well everything will be of some local importance, so that level is actually of little value).

Oddly, the paper then seems to abandon much of the proposed criteria and falls back onto the Ramsar criteria to identify sites of International significance and DIWA criteria for National importance.

This suggestion means that the lack of disturbance (proposed criterion 1), biodiversity hotspots (proposed criterion 4) and evidence of evolution (proposed criterion 5) would no

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longer be criteria to identify HCVAEs at the international level, and disturbance and evolution criteria no longer applicable at the national level (what this means for the Australian Wild Rivers program is unclear).

I believe that the seven proposed criteria are perfectly adequate to identify HCVAEs at all levels. All that is needed is to devise a rating system for each criterion – such as what level or type of disturbance would exclude a site from the international, national or regional level of importance. It would be perfectly feasible for this rating scheme to be consistent with both Ramsar and DIWA classifications, but not simply be the Ramsar and DIWA scheme. I note that one of the Basic Principles proposed is that the “Criteria should be compatible with international reporting frameworks”, not necessarily the same as them.

This is addressed in the discussion – “it should be noted that the proposal here is to use Ramsar and DIWA criteria, not Ramsar and DIWA listings” – but to me, this is fairly unsatisfactory. The Ramsar and DIWA criteria have demonstrably failed to identify HCVAEs in the past (only 64 in Australia, all lentic). The waterbird and fish-centric nature of the Ramsar and DIWA classifications (Appendices 2 and 3) – as they are generally applied in practice – would seem to be the reason for so few sites having been identified in the past. So it seems overly hopeful that they will be used comprehensively in the future.

Part of the problem is that many of the terms and concepts in the criteria are a bit fuzzy and ill-defined, particularly “important”. Once “what constitutes a particular level of importance” are attached to each of the criteria, then the issue disappears and the criteria as proposed can be used directly as a replacement for Ramsar and DIWA criteria for HCVAEs (presumably listed Ramsar and DIWA sites will still be chosen on their own criteria), but the HCVAE criteria will support these identifications..

In the Recommendations, a new criterion is introduced – “The ecosystem has high irreplaceability value within a bioregional context”. If the authors believe this to be an important criterion, then it should be included in the list of his seven proposed criteria. Suitable acknowledgement of Dr. Janet Stein for the idea could be made.

Besides, if one criterion can be recommended to be added to the DIWA assessment scheme, why not the others that are not already present?

The whole discussion of integrity is deferred to an Appendix, while it forms a major part of the proposed definition of regional significance. This should have more time in the main text.

Overall, the discussion paper presents a strong argument for the seven criteria (plus the irreplaceability criteria which should be included) to be used to identify HCVAEs. Work is required to develop suitable guidelines and definitions of international, national and regional importance for each of the guidelines.

However, I disagree that these should be put to one side and the Ramsar and DIWA criteria used to identify high level HCVAEs in the short-term.

PresentationI have a number of concerns with the presentation. Section headings do not follow a logical sequence and are of different levels. I think it would be better set out under seven consistent headings: Introduction; Basic Principles; Existing criteria; Proposed HCVAE criteria; Discussion; Conclusions; References. [some changes made to accommodate this criticism – jn]

I would prefer to see the endnotes incorporated as footnotes in the text. This is a personal preference, but due to the length of the paper, swapping between the text and the footnotes was somewhat tedious.

The paper, in my opinion, is too long with many of the Appendices not required to fulfil the purpose of the paper set out on Page 2. In particular:

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The text reference to Appendix 1 is to a list of references, while Appendix 1 is a discussion on general resource management principles and links to lists of references, some of which are of relevance. I would replace the text reference with cited key references and delete the appendix.

The main reason for Appendix 2 is for the criteria used for Ramsar – all the guidelines can be deleted, and referenced to the document (the guidelines are not explicitly discussed in the text). Appendix 3 lists only the criteria and Appendix 2 should be the same.

Appendix 4 is referred to only once in the text, so a reference to the website in the text should be sufficient to direct interested parties to the site.

Appendix 6 does not appear to be referred to in the main text. The key bits of Appendix 9 could be brought up into the text as suggested. Appendices 10, 11 and 12 are over-long descriptions of schemes that receive passing

(but important mentions) in the text. I am not sure about the value of the depth of discussion in these appendices (summarise concisely and reference to original documents).

Appendix 14 is referenced only once in the main text. Appendices 15 and particularly Appendix 16 are over-long descriptions of schemes

that receive passing in the text.

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Appendix 18: A systematic conservation planning approach:

A systematic conservation planning approach to identifying regional and national priorities for freshwater conservation

Josie Carwardine1 and Bob Pressey1,2 10th August 2007

1The Ecology Centre, the University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia, email: j.carwardine@uq.edu.au2ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville QLD 4811, Australia, email: bob.pressey@jcu.edu.au

IntroductionConservation priorities have historically been placed where more productive land uses are unsuitable, a criterion that is not systematic, and is unlikely to result in a conservation plan that protects a comprehensive range of biodiversity (Pressey and Taffs 2001). Systematic conservation planning has evolved in the past 25 years to provide a more rigorous, defensible and transparent basis for setting spatial conservation priorities. The objective, using tools such as C-Plan, Marxan, and Res-Net, is to design systems of conservation areas that represent target amounts of biodiversity features for a minimal cost, usually area (Margules and Pressey 2000, Possingham et al. 2000) and promote the persistence of biodiversity processes. Systematic conservation planning has become the international norm for identifying conservation areas in terrestrial and marine systems, influencing policy and legislation internationally, shaping decisions by global non-government organisations, and featuring in hundreds of presentations at meetings of the Society for Conservation Biology. Importantly, it can be used to make spatially explicit decisions about a variety of conservation actions, including invasive species control, restoration of native vegetation, and minimizing pollution (Wilson et al. in press). Systematic conservation planning tools have rarely been applied to freshwater systems, probably because conservation attention has focused mainly on protection of terrestrial habitats. However, in recent years, a number of studies have adopted systematic conservation principles to a freshwater setting (e.g. Higgins et al. 2005, Linke et al. 2007)

RationaleSpatially explicit index-based or scoring approaches are commonly used to prioritize freshwater systems, and are also used in many broad-scale terrestrial assessments, e.g. global biodiversity hotspots based on species richness or rarity. Scoring approaches have the benefits of explicitness, usually combining several relevant considerations for conservation priority, and consistency in application. However, they also have several important limitations, demonstrated in the literature since the late 1980s (Smith and Theberge 1987, Pressey 1997). These include:

(i) Combining rankings for criteria can be mathematically invalid and not meaningful (Naturalness + species richness – threat = ?);

(ii) Outstanding scores for one or more criteria can be averaged out by low scores (a high score for fish should not be superseded by a low score for waterbirds);

(iii) There are no stopping rules for conservation action (how far down a list of priorities should planners go?);

(iv) It is usually infeasible to represent all conservation assets in a set of highest-scoring areas because scoring lists do not recognise complementarity (below);

Systematic conservation planning has been developed in response to these limitations of scoring approaches (Pressey 2002). It has several important advantages over earlier scoring systems:

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1. Explicit and quantitative targets or objectives. These can be set and achieved in line with quantitative policy guidelines (e.g. Australia is committed to the protection of representative ecosystems and to the protection of rare and endangered species). For example a set of targets might be to conserve 15% of each ecosystem type, or 50% of the range of all rare species. The equivalent index-based approaches can only set targets such as: to conserve the largest, most biodiverse, and/or rarest areas, which tells us nothing about the overall amounts of each asset that will end up in our final set of conservation priority areas. Other objectives in systematic methods can be framed to promote the persistence of biodiversity processes (Pressey et al. 2007) or to represent ecosystems with stewardship covenants whilst minimizing the opportunity costs of reduced grazing to the landholder. Without explicit objectives and targets, index-based approaches struggle to deal with these kinds of trade-offs.

2. Complementarity and efficiency. Because the whole of a conservation area system is worth more than the sum of the parts, the systematic approach aims to select areas that complement each other and the existing network in terms of the conservation assets. Scoring approaches (on the other hand)

assess each area individually. Highest ranking areas can contain the same conservation features which are duplicated, while other features remain completely unrepresented, especially if they occur only in low-ranking areas. This was the single most important motivation for developing systematic methods (Pressey 2002) that identify sets of complementary areas. Complementarity promotes efficiency. Accounting for spatially variable information on the cost of specific actions has been shown to substantially improve efficiency, compared with the approach of designating ‘priority areas’ and considering actions and their costs post hoc (Carwardine et al. 2006). Scoring approaches (and a concerning but decreasing proportion of systematic assessments), tend to ignore cost a priori. Systematic conservation planning approaches have the advantage of being able to synthesize multiple alternative costs and actions, without using flawed scoring techniques.

19 Note that a technical group has formed under the Cooperative Research Centre for Coastal Zone, Estuaries and Waterway Management (CRC CZEWM) to continue collation and standardisation of estuary assessment activity. Contact: Roger Shaw.25 The program has two additional major components: Support for Water Reform – providing additional scientific input to underpin the sustainable management of Australia’s water resources. Inputs include: establishing adequate environmental flows; ensuring water resource development is sustainable; developing strategies to reduce withdrawals in over-allocated systems and supporting integrated catchment management.Groundwater - including a research project to identify groundwater dependent ecosystems throughout Australia, and the best methods to identify the environmental water requirements for these groundwater systems.26 Pers. comm. Janet Stein ANU Feb 2004: "The project developed some interesting methods but the data was not available at suitable resolutions to produce useful results at the reach scale. It was however useful as an overview for the intensive land use zone."27 Chessman (2002) was a trial of a more detailed, standardised and objective process than the original Stressed Rivers process (which was a desktop assessment based partly on opinion and partly on patchy existing data of limited scope and sometimes uncertain quality). Chessman’s proposal used the same general framework which was based on both 'river health' and conservation significance.28 Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment (2005) Auditing Tasmania’s freshwater ecosystem values: summary of assessment framework: draft report. DPIWE, Hobart.29 Jonathan Miller, pers. comm. 5/12/00.30 Water abstraction was detected very crudely as indicated by the presence of drainage canals - this index especially needs more work.31 This estimate of 2000 depends very much on how the proposed application guidelines assess ‘disturbance’ – the criteria where the proposed HCVAE criteria differ from the Ramsar and DIWA criteria. If a relaxed definition is used, the figure would be much greater than 2000. And visa versa.

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3. Irreplaceability and flexibility. Systematic conservation planning tools generate multiple alternative sets of areas that meet conservation objectives, providing flexible options and measures of irreplaceability (selection frequency, or a modelled approximation of the likelihood that an area is needed to meet the conservation objectives). Irreplaceability can be used as a quantitative measure of priority: areas with higher irreplaceability are likely to require more urgent action because, if they are lost, targets for one or more biological assets are unable to be met. Higher scores in index-based systems do not necessarily equate to a required urgency of action to protect assets, because the scores were not derived using asset-based targets.

4. Adequacy and persistence. Adequacy refers broadly to the persistence of biodiversity processes, including population dynamics, movement and migration, patch dynamics, catchment processes and river flows, and many others. Adequacy is difficult to quantify

32 A new criteria based on ‘naturalness’ or lack of disturbance, depending on wording, could be used alone or in tandem with existing DIWA criteria.33 Such guidelines, for example, could specify the meaning of ‘large’. A figure of 1000 ha minimum could be set for a lentic ecosystem, or say 5 km for a lotic ecosystem. The guidelines could also specify that a site meeting the ‘rehabilitation possible’ criterion should also demonstrate one of values from criteria 2 to 7 after potential rehabilitation.34 That is, threatened species on the national register created under the EPBC Act.35 Although the Commonwealth cannot force proactive State management of a Ramsar site, it can encourage it through s.333 (encourage management planning) and s.336 (provision of financial assistance).36 Many GAB stock bores have a wastage rate of 90% or more (see http://www.gab.org.au/about/managementgab.html#key)37 Page 10: “limited resources and short time frames precluded an analysis of other freshwater ecosystems”.38 The report relies in pre-existing wetland inventories, such as Cromarty and Scott 1996.39 Interpreted within the context of this report (Chadderton et al. p.10).40 Australia has, at this stage, no comprehensive inventory of subterranean ecosystems which could allow such a prioritisation. The same situation may apply in NZ.41 Note that there is no statewide planning policy for wetlands, although this had been proposed under the Victorian Wetlands Program. This recommendation was not implemented by an incoming coalition government in 1992. Planning on private (and public) land in Victoria is subject to the Victorian Planning Provisions which allow local government to use local planning policies, zoning, environmental and other overlays as appropriate to achieve planning objectives, including biodiversity conservation - but there is no specific policy regarding wetland conservation.

42 Wetland conservation reserves have been incorporated into the park and reserve system in Victoria essentially as a result of the LCC process. There are about 300 wildlife reserves, the majority of which are wetlands, about 100 lake reserves, and 264 streamside reserves. Wetlands are also included in scheduled parks, eg Lake Albacutya, Hattah-Kulkyne Lakes, part of Barmah Forest. Although this process was not based on bioregional planning as such, Victoria has a reasonably good representation of wetland types (using Corrick’s definition) in its protected area network. Corrick used a six-category classification based on water depth, whether water remained permanently or temporarily on the wetland, and water salinity: freshwater meadow, shallow freshwater marsh, deep freshwater marsh, permanent open freshwater wetland, semi-permanent saline wetland, and permanent saline wetland. These are also listed in: Government of Victoria 1997c:120.

43 By this time (October 1992) a new State government (the Kennett government) had taken office in Victoria. This government had different priorities with respect to the LCC's program, and later replaced the body with the Environment and Conservation Council.

44 While a fundamental aim of the Heritage Rivers Program was to protect “representative” rivers, it should be noted that the term “representative” does not have exactly the same meaning allocated to the term in this paper. The term as used in the Strategy, and later by the LCC, includes only representative values relating to hydrology and geomorphology. However, stream geomorphology and hydrology provide the physical base on which the

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and implement, but systematic methods are being developed that achieve explicit objectives related to adequacy (Pressey et al. 2007). Some of these are being adapted specifically for freshwater systems to consider longitudinal and lateral connectivity (below).

ApproachesIn the past few years, a small number of exceptional studies have made the conceptual and technical leap to develop freshwater systematic conservation planning tools that enhance the existing software tools. Although theoretically a similar approach, lentic and lotic systems exhibit lateral and longitudinal flows, meaning that the directionality in connectivity cannot be ignored. Spatial context has been addressed in terrestrial and marine systems by preferentially clustering areas together to minimize the total boundary length of the system. Such an approach can be extended to account for connections between upper and lower reaches within catchments (e.g. see Linke et al. 2007). While landscape condition is rarely considered in terrestrial systems, habitat condition has long been used in scoring freshwater systems. Current existing conservation planning software offers the building blocks to incorporate flow, condition and other freshwater-specific considerations (Linke et al. 2007). Research associated with AEDA/UQ is already adapting a river script to be built into MARXAN, and the eWater CRC is developing a systematic Catchment Planning Tool. Estuarine and subterranean systems can also be addressed by modifying existing software tools. The NZ WONI approach (Chadderton et al. 2004), while operating at broad resolutions, also provides valuable insights. A transition to a nationally adopted systematic approach for freshwater systems is feasible, logical and efficient.

Systematic conservation planning can be undertaken at any local, regional, national or global scale. The two levels of significance (regional and national) required in a freshwater prioritization protocol can be identified by undertaking planning at these two scales. Areas designated as high priority (i.e. those with a high irreplaceability) at a national scale indicate a national importance for targeted biodiversity assets, i.e. if one of these areas were lost or further degraded there are none or very few alternative areas in the entire country that can represent the same biodiversity assets cost-effectively. Areas allocated high irreplaceability in a regional analysis are those which represent the only cost-effective options for conserving one or more assets in that particular region, although there may be other areas in other regions which contain the same or similar biodiversity assets. All nationally significant areas will also be regionally significant if the same targets and data are used, but regional analyses can take advantage of better, finer resolution data that are not available at a national scale. At either scale, irreplaceability values can be used for triggering conservation actions (e.g. purchasing the area around a nationally significant stream reach), and can be interpreted as tools for land-use controls. For example, in considering a proposed development, an approval authority (council or catchment board) might be legally obliged to protect a prescribed ecosystem value (e.g. an area that is regionally irreplaceable because it contains the last population of a rare river turtle).

Data

stream ecology rests. Furthermore, when one examines the method used by the LCC to identify river types on which to develop a representative list (LCC 1989: 112-117), one key ecological variable was taken into account: whether the river system drained to the sea (thus providing fish with an estuarine or marine phase in their life-cycle access to the rivers) or to the inland Murray-Darling Basin (in which case these species have no effective access).

The 37-unit river classification initially used by the LCC was derived by overlaying a 29-unit geomorphic regionalisation with a 5-unit hydrological regionalisation. This was later modified by reducing the complexity of the geomorphic regionalisation to 9 categories (LCC (1991: 105-113) yielding a 16-unit river classification.

Nevertheless, the exclusion of the matter of representative ecosystems from explicit consideration in the Victorian study presents a limitation to the program and its outcomes.

45 The preparation of these management plans, encompassing protective management regimes, was an explicit requirement of the Order by Governor in Council 7/7/92 through which the State Government formally accepted the LCC’s recommendations.

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Data requirements for systematic and scoring approaches are essentially the same. Data deficiencies and biases will have similar effects in both approaches, by favouring areas where biological data is more prevalent. This can be overcome by using species models rather than point data, and by using comprehensive environmental or habitat classes in addition to species data. Current potentially useful datasets we are aware of for freshwater planning in Australia include: NRHP database for aquatic invertebrates, extensively mapped fish distributions for the east and the tropics, and a comprehensive database of environmental information (e.g. data developed by Janet Stein at ANU). This latter dataset could be/is being used to derive a more biologically meaningful environmental classification for freshwater systems than is possible with IBRA regions. Importantly, there is the potential to derive highly flexible classifications (regionalisations) of streams and wetlands based on different criteria (e.g. fish, invertebrates, physical variables) and at different levels of agglomeration tailored to specific problems. Capacity Australian researchers are at the cutting edge of systematic conservation planning research. We boast four pioneers in this research field: Bob Pressey, Hugh Possingham, Chris Margules, and Dan Faith, as well as pioneers of aquatic conservation planning: Simon Linke, Eren Turak, Janet Stein and Peter Davies. Most modern conservation planning exercises in terrestrial and marine systems worldwide are based on systematic tools, and the most widely used tools were developed in Australia by these researchers. The rapidly expanding research groups surrounding these core academics are providing increasing numbers of PhD graduates with the comprehensive understanding and skills needed to continue and improve this legacy. Australia has the capacity to lead the world by example in adopting systematic freshwater conservation planning as our national protocol.

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Watts, C.H.S. and Humphreys, W.F. (2004) Thirteen new Dytiscidae (Coleoptera) of the genera Boongurrus Larson, Tjirtudessus Watts & Humphreys and Nirripirti Watts and Humphreys, from underground waters in Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 128: 99-129.

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Woinarski, J. C. Z., Brock, C., Armstrong, M., Hempel, C., Cheal, D. & Brennan, K. (2000) Bird distribution in riparian vegetation of an Australian tropical savanna: a broad-scale survey and analysis of distributional data base. Journal of Biogeography vol. 27, pp. 843-868.  

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Endnotes:

20 For example, a development proposal undergoing environmental impact assessment will be placed under additional scrutiny if a Ramsar wetland is likely to be affected, compared with a wetland of only ‘local’ value. In terms of water use, section 40 of Victoria’s Water Act 1989 provides a number of ‘triggers’ increasing the level of scrutiny of water allocation decisions. Impact on a designated heritage river is among the listed triggers. Strangely, reference to Victoria’s 15 representative rivers is not included in s.40. This appears to be an oversight in the drafting of the Act, and should, in my opinion, be corrected as soon as practical. Ramsar sites also need to be added to the heads of consideration within s.40. Victoria’s water quality policy contains provisions for the protection of ecosystems of high ecological value (Ramsar sites are included under this term).21 A keystone species is a species which, although possibly not dominant on a biomass basis, plays a key ecological role. Sea otters, for example, are a keystone species in Californian kelp forests, as they prey on sea urchins which in turn feed on kelp. 22 Based on US inventory classification methods developed in the 1970s.23 Biodiversity is usually defined in terms of genes, species and ecosystems.24 Where sufficient information on the distribution of habitat attributes is not available, higher order biodiversity surrogates will need to be used – such as mapped boundaries of habitat types or (at a higher level again) ecosystem types.

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