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Town planning is about balancing the inherent tensions between private property rights and the public interest. Private land ownership is a cornerstone of our economic system, and land ownership brings with it a set of principles about what people may do with their land.
In recent years, governments have increasingly recognised that private land ownership carries with it responsibilities as well, so town planning schemes now incorporate restrictions on the size, location and design on the structures people may build upon their land.
Sustainability is now a major concern of our society, and many governments are considering ways in which the principles of sustainability need to be incorporated into our town planning systems. Some aspects of sustainability that need to be considered include:
These aspects of sustainability may sit unfomfortably together; for example, higher residential densities often result in reduced garden areas, thus reducing opportunities for plants and animals (especially birds) to occupy our urban areas.
The negative biodiversity impacts of higher residential densities can be offset by increasing the size of parks and especially natural bushland areas.
In Western Australia, the State Government has introduced the BushForever process to recognize and protect urban bushland areas of high biodiversity. This process has worked reasonably well in relation to bushlands that were in public ownership, however it has failed to adequately deal with protection of bushland in private hands because governments have not allocated sufficient funding to purchse such bushland areas to protect their biodiversity. The Underwood Avenue Bushland is a good example of the kinds of problems that arise with privately owned bushland of high biodiversity.
The current trend towards larger houses on smaller blocks of land often results in mature trees being removed from suburban back gardens. Where these trees are local species (Jarrah or Tuart), their removal has a significant impact on biodiversity of the area. Even non-local species (such as eastern states Eucalypts) may contribute to biodiversity, for example by providing food for the endangered Canraby's Cockatoos. On the other hand, eastern states Eucalypts are also attractive to pest birds such as Rainbow Lorrikeets, and these birds may spread the seeds of these Eucalypts into nearby bushland areas, creating an additional weed burden in these areas.
Contribution: Dani Boase-Jelinek (7 Jan 2007)
The Underwood Avenue Bushland issue represents a significant challenge to the University of Western Australia as it seeks to position itself as a great Australian university.
The University of Western Australia is a public institution largely funded by taxpayers. According to the W.A. Auditor General's most recent report, the proportion of Government funding for UWA (including Commonwealth research grants and HECS) rose from 54% in 1999 to 55% of total funding in the year 2000.
As a taxpayer funded institution, the university has legal rights to harness its resources for the teaching and research, and responsibilities to use those resources efficiently and effectively.
We note that this University has significant resources that it can harness for teaching and research. In the year 2000, the University had investments and working capital of $520M. In comparison, Curtin University of Technology, with four times the student population, had investments and working capital of $69M (less than 1 seventh), and Murdoch University had $6M (just over 1 percent). Much of the wealth of this university has come from clearing and developing 1600 hectares of endowment lands granted to it by the people of Western Australia during the past 100 years. We note that there is still 240 hectares of this endowment land left, of which this bushland represents only 13%. Thus, out of 1600 hectares of land, only this 38ha of bushland at Underwood and a similar area of wetland at Kenwick remain uncleared. We also note that the University sought to sell off the Kenwick wetlands for housing, and was refused on environmental grounds.
The challenge we see facing this wealthy University is how it seeks to balance its rights and responsibilities as an educational institution against its role as a taxpayer funded corporate citizen. At what point does such an institution recognize that it has a responsibility to respect the public interest in terms of issues such as biodiversity protection and social values?
Why is this piece of bushland so important that between $10M and $20M of taxpayer's money is being spent just to decide whether it should be protected or destroyed? The University portrays this issue as a purely financial transaction. But, of course, it isn't a purely financial transaction at all. It is a transaction that has enormous implications for the world in which we live, and for the world in which our children will live.
The 1996 Commonwealth State of the Environment Report states that: "For the land animals and plants about which we know enough to assess their current state, the trends are disturbing. Some 5% of higher plants, 23% of mammals, 9% of birds, 7% of reptiles, 16% of amphibians and 9% of fresh-water fish are extinct, endangered or vulnerable. Australia has the world's worst record of mammal extinctions. In the past 200 years, we have lost 10 of 144 species of marsupials and 8 of 53 species of native rodents."
This bushland is home to plant communities that have become uncommon on the Swan Coastal plain, such as a population of Eucalyptus decipens and an unusually large thicket of Banksia Prinotes, and endangered birds such as the Short Billed Black Cockatoo that feed on them. It is important to appreciate that the Australian bush is not uniform but is richly diverse and varied ,depending on soil type. For example, Underwood avenue is vegetation type Karrakatta Central and South, of which only 5.6% of the original is to be preserved under Bushplan.
This bushland is important not just as a possible refuge for these plants and animals. It is also important in maintaining the health of Kings Park and Bold Park because it is part of a vital corridor linking these areas of bushland, and the exchange of genetic material that occurs along this corridor makes it possible for all the areas of bushland along this corridor to continue to evolve and adapt to changing environmental conditions. Without such a corridor, Kings Park and Bold Park will become even more isolated, increasingly vulnerable to environmental changes, and increasingly expensive to maintain. According to Dr Paddy Berry, former Director of Natural Science at the WA Museum: "The Underwood Ave Bushland was identified in Perth Bushplan as having high conservation value and comprising a corridor for future dispersion of native animal and birds between remnants of native vegetation. The WA Museum's findings confirm this emphatically".
Dr Berry has also informed us that: "35 bird species have been recorded in Underwood Ave , of which 18 are known so far to breed in the bushland. A high proportion (13 species) rely on native vegetation for feeding and seldom, if ever occur in nearby gardens. Loss of Underwood Ave bushland could be expected to lead to the continued loss of bird species from Kings Park."
We note that the University has acknowledged the importance of these bushland corridors identified as part of the recent structure planning process for this area. We also note that there are people within the University who would much prefer to find a solution that respects the needs of both the University and the protection of biodiversity. We believe that such a solution may be found if we are all prepared to move out of our entrenched positions and search together for a win-win outcome.
Contribution: Dani Boase-Jelinek (5 Jan 2007)