Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T01:46:55.130Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Australia's Distinctive National Parks System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Geoffrey Charles Wescott
Geoffrey Charles Wescott
Affiliation:
Department of Heritage and Resource Management, Faculty of Applied Science, Deakin University, Rusden Campus, 662 Blackburn Road, Clayton, 3168 Victoria, Australia.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Australia possesses a distinctive national parks and conservation reserves system, in which it is the State Governments rather than the Federal Government which owns, plans, and manages, national parks and other conservation reserves.

Most Australian States declared their first national parks in the latter quarter of last century, Australia's first national park being declared in New South Wales in March 1879. These critical declarations were followed by a slow accumulation of parks and reserves through to 1968. The pace of acquisition then quickened dramatically with an eight-fold expansion in the total area of national parks between 1968 and 1990, at an average rate of over 750,000 ha per annum. The present Australian system contains 530 national parks covering 20.18 million hectares or 2.6% of the land-mass. A further 28.3 million hectares is protected in other parks and conservation reserves. In terms of the percentage of their land-mass now in national parks, the leading States are Tasmania (12.8%) and Victoria (10.0%), with Western Australia (1.9%) and Queensland (2.1%) trailing far behind, and New South Wales (3.92%) and South Australia (3.1%) lying between.

The Australian system is also compared with the Canadian and USA systems. All three are countries of widely comparable cultures that have national parks covering similar percentage areas, but Canada and the USA have far fewer national parks than Australia and they are in general of much greater size. In addition, Canada and the USA ‘resource’ these parks far better than the Australians do theirs. The paper concludes that Australia needs to rationalize its current system by introducing direct funding, by the Federal Government, of national park management, and duly examining the whole system of reserves from a national rather than States' viewpoint.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , Winter 1991 , pp. 331 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Fenner, F. (Ed.) (1975). A National System of Ecological Reserves in Australia. Australian Academy of Science, Report No. 19, Canberra, ACT, Australia: 114 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Goldstein, W. (Ed.) (1979). Australia's 100 Years of National Parks. New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia: 160 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Hawke, R.J.L. (1989). Our Country, Our Future. Statement on the Environment, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, ACT, Australia: vi + 64 pp.Google Scholar
Hinchley, M.D. (Ed.) (1982). Nature Conservation Reserves in Australia (1982). Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, Occasional Paper No. 7, Canberra, ACT, Australia: iii + 36 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
McMichael, D.F. (1980). An International Perspective. Pp. 34–43 in The Value of National Parks to the Community (Eds Messer, J. & Mosley, G.). Australian Conservation Foundation, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: 223 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Mobbs, C.J. (Ed.) (1987). Nature Conservation Reserves in Australia (1986). Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, Occasional Paper No. 12, Canberra, ACT, Australia: viii + 44 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Mobbs, C.J. (Ed.) (1989). Nature Conservation Reserves in Australia (1988). Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, Occasional Paper No. 19, Canberra, ACT, Australia: vi + 70 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
National Parks Act (1975). Victorian Parliament, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: [not available for checking].Google Scholar
Ovington, D. (1980). A National Perspective. Pp. 45–57 in The Value of National Parks to the Community (Eds Messer, J. & Mosley, G.). Australian Conservation Foundation, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: 223 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Runte, A. (1987). National Parks: The American Experience, 2nd edn.University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London: xxii + 336 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Victorian Land Conservation Council (cited as VLCC) (1988). Statewide Assessment of Public Land Use, Victoria, Australia. Victoria Land Conservation Council, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: 419 pp., illustr.Google Scholar