Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

A lot of our discussion this afternoon has reflected questions about climate change which were asked during question time today—and that is appropriate. It is the most pressing, overarching environmental and, indeed, economic and social issue that the country and the planet faces. However, it is important also that, alongside or as part of having that debate about the appropriateness, adequacy and nature of our overall response to climate change, we look at concrete examples and specific ways of addressing the issue of climate change to mitigate and avoid it and look at issues that can demonstrate the linkage of climate change to other environmental and social issues.

The question that I asked today of Senator Abetz, in his capacity representing the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, pointed to one example—the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area in the far north of Queensland, my home state. The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area is relatively well known, particularly for the Daintree rainforest. It is known for its magnificent natural beauty and it has the appropriate slogan ‘Where the rainforest meets the reef’, because it adjoins the equally beautiful and equally environmentally significant Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Aspects of quite wide environmental significance are not often properly recognised and understood. The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area—and it is not just the Daintree, I might emphasise; it goes further to the north of the Daintree up close to Cooktown and right down south past Cairns, almost to Townsville—is incredibly diverse and incredibly important in an ecological sense, particularly because of its immense biodiversity.

For all the focus we have in this chamber and elsewhere on some other areas and some other environmental issues that involve landscapes that are visually appealing, the simple fact is that in terms of biodiversity the wet tropics region in Far North Queensland—like other, larger, parts of Far North Queensland such as the Cape—has an incredible concentration of biodiversity and is recognised globally as a biodiversity hot spot.

This is important not just because of the significance for the future maintenance of ecological diversity but also as a buffer against the impacts of climate change. This is a relatively small area, which is significantly threatened because of human activity, particularly residential and commercial development, agricultural activities and tourism pressures. Small areas with immense biodiversity that also have climate change coming over the top are under significant threat. They need proper support for management.

The federal government do not provide significant amounts of money for the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. I believe that they need to give extra resources to it, because, from an ecological point of view, we have an indescribably significant World Heritage area. The question I raised today goes not just to the pure biodiversity issue of the wet tropics area but also to the even less well-recognised cultural diversity of the area.

I am pleased that the federal government is finally moving towards giving consideration to renominating the wet tropics area for its Aboriginal cultural values, but that process really needs to be undertaken as quickly as possible. And, whilst Senator Abetz did outline some resourcing the federal government is providing to the Aboriginal traditional owners of that area, it is not sufficient. We often do not comprehend the integral link between the biodiversity, the ecological diversity, of a region like the wet tropics and its cultural diversity. They are intertwined, because it was the cultural and management practices of Aboriginal traditional owners going back millennia that actually maintained, protected and preserved that biodiversity that we now recognise as so significant.

If we do not provide assistance to the traditional owners with their traditional management knowledge for this region then we are putting at risk not just the cultural values that are finally slowly being recognised as of World Heritage significance but also the ecological values, the biodiversity values, that they are part and parcel with. That is not only a tragedy in terms of loss of knowledge and loss of ecological values with the Indigenous peoples; it is also reducing and putting at risk a major buffer against the serious threat that climate change presents.

Question agreed to.