[Taxacom] The picture isn't all black

[Bob Mesibov]

Fred Schueler has sent a reminder to me off-list of the
biodiversity-unfriendly attitudes of the US Federal Government. To be
honest, it made feel a little guilty that I live where governments
aren't so fanatically dedicated to the *Humans First!* principle. Two
examples:

The New South Wales state government recently decided to plan for 180
000 new homes in suburbs to the west and south of Sydney (pop. 4
million). The planning authority

http://www.gcc.nsw.gov.au/

did a habitat analysis, budgeted something like $500 million to buy
private land of high conservation value, set up all sorts of rules to
reserve urban woodland and heath within the new areas, and devised a
system of trade-off's (clear here, then you have to set aside more
there).

An even faster growing city, Brisbane in Queensland, is much greener.

http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/BCC:BASE::pc=PC_2134

Since 1991 the city council has spent more than $90 million to buy and
manage 1800 ha in-city for flora and fauna conservation. The aim is to
have 40% of the Brisbane city area as natural habitat by 2026. Brisbane
has a Natural Assets Local Law to stop indiscriminate vegetation
clearing, too.

In 2005 the city funded the Queensland Museum to survey the invertebrate
fauna of its reserves, to see if the existing reserves were adequate for
invert conservation, assess microhabitats for advising land managers,
etc. More recently the city has been expanding the range of entities
(community groups, schools, businesses) with which it cooperates in
studying and managing the natural urban assets, including invertebrates.
The social aim is to link the management system into the broader
community to make it cheaper and more durable.

I often whinge about vanishing species in Australia and nobody caring,
but I'm mainly talking about agricultural and pastoral areas. Urban and
suburban areas are actually not doing too badly. This week I heard from
a friend in Hobart, Tasmania's capital city. He and a colleague have
just rediscovered an orchid in city bushland which had last been seen in
1852 and had been declared extinct.
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
and School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html
---