The ACT Greens will today launch a $53 million plan to make Canberra Australia’s urban biodiversity haven, by building local ecosystems that support species threatened by human-induced climate change and habitat loss.
The ACT Greens ‘Repairing the Land’ conservation plan will deliver integrated management of Canberra’s urban, bush and rural ecosystems, waterways and wildlife corridors, increasing the diversity and strength of our ecological communities and providing food, shelter and nesting sites.
The Greens ‘Repairing the Land’ plan will:
- Make the ACT a biodiversity hotspot and wildlife haven by protecting and expanding local habitats, tree hollows, food trees, and accessible water across our city
- Create neighbourhood forests and establishing an urban wildlife corridors program
- Diversify our urban flora and fauna, including a plan to grow and maintain thousands of new trees while increasing Canberra’s urban tree canopy to 30%
- Increase funding for management of Namadgi National Park, especially for bushfire rehabilitation and invasive species management
- Increase funding for the Parks and Conservation Service and a range of community environmental groups
- Employ 10 new local Indigenous Rangers to improve environmental management and restoration, including through cultural practices, cultural water and fire management
- Create strong protections for a range of remnant ecologically significant grassland and woodland sites across the ACT
- Create a new dedicated urban parks and places volunteering scheme focused on biodiversity.
Comments attributable to ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury:
“To ready our city for our new climate reality, we must act to protect our environment, with the same boldness and decisiveness as we have the COVID crisis.
“Canberra needs a comprehensive plan to protect our environment, and everything that depends on it. The Greens are committed to Building a Better Normal out of the COVID crisis.”
Comments attributable to ACT Greens campaign spokesperson for the Environment, Jo Clay:
“Canberra has beautiful parks and waterways. We have Indigenous land managers who understand this country. We have committed volunteer conservation and citizen science groups. But we haven’t had a comprehensive land management strategy to link all this together. In a changing climate, we need to repair the land and turn this region into a wildlife haven.”
