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Issues Key ConceptsSustainability ReviewToward Sustainability |
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The State of the Environment (SoE) Report identifies many environmental and natural resource values in Tasmania. These include values that are important for the uses or services they provide for people, as well as values that are important for their own sake irrespective of human use. Many environmental services are not valued and are poorly understood, although programs such as Protected Environmental Values (PEVs) have set out to define these values for the State's rivers and estuaries. Environmental services include the capacity of the environment to assimilate waste and the productive capacity of land and water. The following are examples of some of the values identified in the SoE Report. Atmosphere Clean air is a widely accepted value associated with Tasmania. Tasmania has the potential-given the high quality of the air it receives-to have a high standard of air quality across all population centres. Tasmania is also unlikely to experience the problems of photochemical smog, prevalent in mainland cities. Other key values identified include:- The State has an important connection to the international response to climate change through the Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station. The Cape Grim Station is operated by the Bureau of Meteorology and its scientific program is managed jointly with CSIRO Atmospheric Research. The trace gas data from the monitoring site is used in several indicators in this SoE Report as well as by other SoE programs and environmental reports, both in Australia and overseas.
- The State's forests are an important value, in atmospheric terms alone, as they contribute to Tasmania's status as a net greenhouse sink (acknowledging that there are uncertainties in assessing carbon held and released from soils and biomass).
Land The general description of 'land' embodies numerous values from soil condition to geodiversity, scenic landscape and wilderness. The diversity of landscape and landcover, the variety of the scenery, and the productive capacity of soils are part of the State's basic natural capital. Each of these values contain many component values and qualities. For example: - In the case of soils, values and qualities include drainage status, texture, colour, pH, structural strength and nutrient status. These component qualities cause soils to have greater or lesser capacity to respond to land use management stress.
- In the case of scenic landscape values, component values and qualities include the properties of the land, such as landform, landcover, slope, and land use, arising from a number of natural and cultural processes. 'Landscape' is a key value because of the sense of place that Tasmanian's experience and for its role in attracting visitors to Tasmania.
- The value of land described as 'wilderness' is comprised of two essential qualities - remoteness and naturalness.
Inland Waters and Wetlands The general description 'Inland Waters and Wetlands' contains values that can be grouped broadly under the headings of surface water and groundwater. Specific values relate to water quality, water quantity, and aquatic health. Water quality is defined as a measure of the life sustaining nature of Tasmania's inland water resources and the potential of that water. It is also a key indicator of sustainability (DPIWE 2003). Water quantity-the availability of water for a variety of uses-is one of the most basic values upon which a variety of other social, economic and environmental values depend. A healthy aquatic ecosystem supports the biological, chemical and physical processes that are essential for maintaining good water quality, habitat and biodiversity. Downstream values and dependent systems benefit from the maintenance of aquatic health. Other values include the following.- Wetlands have an important role in ensuring water quality by both physically filtering water and by removing chemicals through uptake by growing aquatic plants. Wetlands help to control flooding by absorbing large amounts of water and then slowly releasing it down creeks and rivers or directly into the ground water table. Wetlands in Tasmania provide habitat for several listed rare and endangered flora and fauna species, and migratory birds.
- Groundwater is used throughout the State for a variety of uses including, water supply to both humans and stock, and for irrigation purposes. Groundwater is also a significant provider of various environmental services, such as providing for the recharge of surface waters.
- Wilderness is a further value held by a few of Tasmania's largely pristine rivers. A wild river is one in which the biological, hydrological and geomorphological processes of river flow and intimately linked parts of its catchment, have not been significantly altered by modern or colonial society.
Biodiversity Biological diversity or biodiversity refers to the variety of life of earth-plants, animals, micro-organisms-as well as the variety of genetic material they contain and of the ecological systems in which they occur (NLWRA 2001). Biodiversity is part of the State's fundamental natural capital upon which countless environmental services and social and economic activities depend. There are numerous values-many unique to Tasmania-within the general description of biological diversity. Examples include the following.- Alpine, rainforest and cave habitats are well represented in Tasmania, and the State is especially rich in endemic animal species from these ecosystems.
- Tasmania is a marsupial stronghold and retains the most ecologically diverse group of large marsupial carnivores in Australia, which includes the eastern quoll, the spotted-tail quoll and the Tasmanian devil.
Settlements Settlements are a product of natural capital, social and economic capital. The values that are contained within Tasmanian settlements are many, but can be viewed broadly in terms of design quality, landscape values, social and economic conditions, the acoustic environment, and drinking water quality. Examples of values include the following.- The natural setting of many Tasmanian settlements, which is often dramatic and picturesque.
- Tasmania is remarkably diverse in its human settlements-the mountainous terrain and rugged coastline, as well as the historical development and the variety of roles performed by settlements, all contribute to this diversity.
- Environmental health is a set of values that relate to maintaining environments that promote healthy communities, and the protection of those aspects of human health determined or influenced by physical, chemical, biological and social factors in the environment.
Cultural Heritage Cultural heritage values relate to places and landscapes, and to social, intellectual and spiritual inheritance in the broadest sense. Examples include the following.- Cultural landscapes are aggregations of places, features, objects, and archival material. Entally House and Port Arthur are examples of cultural landscapes of outstanding value because structural evidence is functional and conserved, often with a management plan in place.
- Cultural heritage places and features are as diverse as the town of Ross, the streetscape of Augusta Road in Hobart, the Queenstown Mine, an East Coast farm, an Aboriginal midden, or the Sydney Cove shipwreck.
- Heritage objects include drawings, paintings, tools, and clothing. Ideas, customs and knowledge are as much heritage as buildings, memorabilia and places. They provide evidence of a way of life. They can often provide vivid memories of the connections between different heritage places and features.
Coastal, Estuarine and Marine The ecology of coastal, estuarine and marine environments is important for its own sake, as well as for its key role in providing for the health and well-being of the people of Tasmania. Tasmanians benefit in innumerable ways from these environments (e.g. fishing, aquaculture, recreation, and tourism). Examples of values include the following.- The harvesting of fish, crustaceans and molluscs from the marine environment is a major human activity affecting marine biodiversity. Many Tasmanian coastal towns such as St Helens, Triabunna, Dover, Currie and Strahan rely substantially on fishing, while for many other Tasmanians it is their main source of recreation. In 2000, the landed value of Tasmanian fisheries was in excess of $170 million (predominantly comprised of abalone and rock lobster). The productivity of Tasmania's wild fisheries is a fundamental coastal, estuarine and marine value.
- Tasmania's marine ecosystems are some of the most diverse on earth and the temperate waters are host to a large number of species, including many unique species that live nowhere else. They are an important part of the world's ecological riches.
- The sheltered, tidal waters of Tasmania's estuaries support unique communities of plants and animals, specially adapted for life at the margin of the sea. Estuarine environments are among the most productive on earth, producing more organic matter per year than equivalent areas of forest, grassland or agricultural land. Estuaries are essential for the survival of many species. Hundreds of marine organisms, including commercially valuable fish species, depend on estuaries during some point in their life cycles.
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