PRIME MINISTER
CHECK AGAINSTLIER EMBARGOED UNTIL DELITVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
OPENING OF THE 18TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE
INTERNATIONAL UNION FOR THE CONSERVATION OF
NATURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES
PERTH 28 NOVEMBER 1990
Your Royal Highness
Premier Lawrence
Distinguished international guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Australia is proud to host the 18th General Assembly of the
IUCN.
We do so aware of the responsibility we bear as stewards
of the Australian continent and as active participants in
the global environmental movement.
This is indeed a heavy responsibility fiizt, because ours
is an ancient, huge and extraordinary land mass that
shelters and nourishes unique species of plants and animals.
It is a laboratory for scientists, a magnet for tourists and
above all a priceless part of the heritage of the world.
Seod ours is a special responsibility because of the
unique histor-y of human habitation on this continent.
For at least .40,000 years, the Australian Aboriginal people
exercised exclusive stewardship of this continent, acting
out their belief not that they owned the land but that the
land owned them.
If conservation means deep spiritual respect for the land,
and identification with it; if conservation requires an
accurate understanding of the place of humankind in the
grand scheme -of creation; if conservation means taking from
the land today without compromising your children's rights
to fulfil their needs tomorrow, then the Australian
Aborigines were perhaps the world's first conservationists.
For them, land care was literally a way of life.
It is only in relatively recent times the last two hundred
years that this continent has undergone the impact of
Western settlement.
But those two centuries are of course the two centuries
since the Industrial Revolution.
In that time, prosperity and quality of life has been
created for some but certainly not all of the world's
growing population. And those incomplete gains have been
achieved only through the progressive conquest of the
world's natural environment by farming, mining, the growth
of cities, the spread of industry.
Soils have been degraded; seas and rivers and lakes have
been polluted; huge parts of the world's tree cover has been
obliterated; the fragile Arctic and Antarctic environments
have been damaged.
The Australian continent may seem to European or Asian eyes
one that is vast, timeless, empty and untouched.
Relatively speaking, it is. But no-one can ignore the fact
and Australians do not ignore it that even here, much of
the landscape bears the mark of human activity that has
wrought permanent environmental change and, not
infrequently, degradation.
That brings me to the third way in which Australians bear a
special responsibility.
We are the only people whose nation occupies an entire
continent. So the physical integrity of the Australian land
mass is duplicated precisely by the political integrity of
the Australian nation.
This means that what Australians decide to do to preserve
the environment of this large continent, or to destroy it,
assumes real and lasting significance.
At the same time, as a modern society and open economy,
Australians understand the vital dynamic of global
interdependence.
We know that the prosperity of all nations is determined by
the economic decisions of each nation a vivid example of
which is provided by the tragic impasse in the current GATT
negotiations. And we know too that the environmental well being of the
globe is equally a shared responsibility.
Australians are exposed as are we all to the danger of
global warming and of ozone depletion. Australians share the
loss we all experience when a living species ceases to exist
somewhere in the world.
So Australians are coming to recognise, as are we all, the
dilemma of modern life:
We still face the pressing need to feed the people
of the world and to create policies that provide
the opportunity for growth and prosperity.
But in the long term, such economic development is
sustainable only if it is ecologically sustainable
otherwise the gains made by this generation are
achieved only at the expense of those who are as
yet unborn.
So for all these reasons, Australians are acutely aware of
our responsibility to care for and to protect the unique
landscape that is our national home.
And in particular, we are endeavouring to show the way
forward towards implementing a viable and effective process
of ecologically sustainable development.
We have established working groups that are examining the
Australian economy, sector by sector agriculture,
forestry, fisheries, mining, manufacturing, energy use and
distribution, transport and tourism.
This way, by careful study and broad community
participation, we are endeavouring to ensure that our
quality of life is maintained for now and for the future.
And we have also established the Resource Assessment
Commission, an independent advisory body that conducts
enquiries into complex resource use issues such as
forestry and coastal zones so that more informed and
integrated decisions can be taken.
We are working too, with the Australian States, to develop a
national environment agreement to rationalise our processes
and to ensure better environmental protection.
Australia is also at the forefront of international
environmental action. We are leading the way in the
reduction of emissions of all greenhouse gases.
We will have eliminated consumption of ozone-depleting
substances by 1998 considerably faster than urged by the
Montreal Protocol.
And Australia has taken the lead, with France, in urging a
total permanent international ban on mining in Antarctica.
As we meet today, the parties to the Antarctic Treaty System
are in conference in Chile and it is my profound hope that
they will take the next steps towards our goal of protecting
this fragile and precious environment.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Australia's achievement is measured simply, if not
comprehensively in our commitment to the World Heritage
List, in the creation and maintenance of which the IUCN has
played such a valuable and respected role.
I record with pleasure the judgement of the IUCN that
" Australia has done more to implement the World Heritage
Convention than any other single country".
Australia has eight sites of outstanding universal values of
culture and nature which have been inscribed on the World
Heritage List.
Tropical, arid and temperate ecosystems marine and
terrestrial are represented by the Great Barrier Reef,
Uluru and Kakadu, the forests of Queensland's Wet Tropics,
and of north-east New South Wales, South-west Tasmania, the
Willandra Lakes Region and the Lord Howe Island group.
Our recent nomination of Shark Bay, six hundred kilometres
to our north on the coast of Western Australia, and of the
sub-Antarctic Macdonald and Heard Islands will add to our
distinguished World Heritage record.
And as a further step, I am pleased to announce that
agreement has been reached between the Commonwealth and
Queensland Governments on joint management arrangements for
the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.
This Management Scheme provides a mechanism for successful
cooperative management of the area. It incorporates joint
funding, consideration of local community interests and
professional scientific advice through two advisory
committees, a professionally staffed Management Agency, a
joint Management Authority and a Ministerial Council.
Through this Scheme, Australia will meet its international
duty to protect this vital part of the world's heritage.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I say none of this in a spirit of complacency, or to pretend
that countries, Australia included, need do no more to
safeguard our global environment.
We have indeed a long way to go. My Government is very
conscious of Australia's responsibility to help maintain the
international momentum on a number of other environmental
issues. The loss of the world's biological diversity is one such
issue.
You will all be aware of the statistics. The five million
species estimated to have evolved over billions of years;
the risk of losing one-quarter of these over the next 20 or
years; the destruction of rainforests, the loss of
genetic diversity, the loss of potential pharmaceuticals and
new food crops.
While some nations may be benefiting in the short-term from
the activities which are leading to such losses, there can
be no winners in the long-term.
Australia believes that the development and negotiation of
an international biodiversity convention is a matter of
great urgency.
At the last General Assembly of the IUCN, a resolution was
passed calling for the establishment of a global
representative system of marine protected areas.
Australia has gone some way towards achieving this goal
through the establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine
Park and other significant Australian marine reserves such
as Ningaloo Marine Park, just north of Shark Bay.
There is, however, a number of other areas in Australian
waters which contribute greatly to the world's biodiversity
and would be valuable additions to a marine reserve system
such as that proposed by the IUCN.
I am, therefore, pleased to announce that the Australian
Government has decided to work towards the expansion of
Australia's marine reserve system. In association with State
and Territory Governments, we will investigate the
establishment of a national, representative system of marine
protected areas for Australia that will protect these areas,
while permitting appropriate uses and promoting public
education. Ladies and gentlemen,
I trust that you will not leave Australia without having
taken the opportunity to appreciate both Australia's
magnificent natural environment and the actions we are
taking to preserve it.
Australians are proud of both.
And I trust that this General Assembly and the continuing
work of the IUCN will help show us and other nations the
way forward.
Since its foundation in 1948, the IUCN has become a highly
respected conservation organisation, forming close and
valuable working relationships with government and
non-government agencies alike. It has also maintained an
important international focus upon the world's environmental
problems.
6
The key to the organisation's success has, in part, been the
expertise it has been able to draw upon from its membership.
It is this expertise, assembled here today, which is
required for the complex issues to be considered over the
coming week. The challenge will be to do more to integrate
economic considerations into many of these issues.
Your meeting indeed comes at a critical time in the
evolution of international affairs. The events that we have
witnessed of late the transformation of superpower
relations and the revolutions of eastern Europe will
ensure the historians of the future see our times as marking
irreversible change. The overthrow of totalitarian rule in
eastern Europe has not only changed the political landscape,
bringing both freedom and democracy to millions; it also
offers hope that as these people shape their economic
destinies in this new order the past decades of
environmental devastation can now be reversed.
We must not overlook of course the persistence of
substantial regional problems not least of course the
potential for conflict in the Gulf. However the balance
sheet is surely positive and must surely give us renewed
confidence in the capacity of international forums such as
yours to achieve lasting and beneficial change.
I wish you all a productive and informative week and hope
that it provides a solid foundation for your work in coming
years. I I .4 2,