Australian Alps are 10 Years Old
This article was written to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Australian Alps national parks in 1996.
Actually parts of the Alps are closer to 600 million years old, but let's not quibble. This year, 1996, marks the tenth anniversary of the signing of an historic agreement to cooperatively manage and protect the Australian Alps national parks.
The Australian Alps are a biogeographical region running from just south of Canberra, down through New South Wales and into Victoria. The protected areas in the Australian Alps are the ACT's Namadgi National Park, New South Wales' Brindabella and Kosciuszko National Parks and Bimberi and Scabby Range Nature Reserves and Victoria's Alpine, Mount Buffalo and Snowy River National Parks and Avon Wilderness. These eight parks form a chain of alpine and sub-alpine protected areas across the roof of Australia occupying 1.6 million hectares.
Before 1986 these eight national parks and nature reserves were managed separately by the various State and Territory governments. But where legislative authority ended at arbitrary borders, nature did not. While each national park agency had its own individual approach to management, native and feral animals continued to cross borders with impunity, weeds spread, water flowed and wild flowers bloomed.
Despite the borders, the high plains, mountains, deep valleys and undulating lowlands of the Alps are a linked ecosystem, a unique area in an otherwise flat and dry continent.
Although the mountains appear rugged and at times hostile, the Alps are actually a fragile landscape sensitive to disturbance. This environment is home to plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. The Alps contain around 700 species of plants from tall mountain ash forests to delicate, brightly colored wildflowers. They are home to some of Australia's rarest animals including koalas and platypuses and species only found in the Alps such as the mountain pygmy possum and the corroboree frog.
Aboriginal people passed through the Alps for thousands of years, but left little obvious evidence on a landscape vulnerable to outside influences. Since Europeans came to Australia and set about conquering the land, the Alps have been subjected to mining, grazing, deforestation and the introduction of weeds and feral animals such as foxes, pigs, cats, dogs and horses. The popularity of the Alps as a tourist destination has led to localised increases in pollution and activities that can cause erosion and trampling such as horse riding, bushwalking and four-wheel drive touring.
A system as fragile and important as the Alps requires cooperative management decisions by all the organisations responsible for looking after the area. The challenge: to meet the expectations and demands of visitors for recreational and educational experiences, while protecting the environment.
It was the need for cooperative management of the Australian Alps national parks that prompted the 1986 signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) by the governments of NSW, Victoria, ACT and the Commonwealth.
The objective of the MOU is to protect the scenery, water catchments, plants, animals and cultural heritage of the Australian Alps as a whole ecosystem, while providing recreation opportunities for the public. The MOU treats the eight protected areas in the Alps as one.
The MOU is overseen by the Australian Alps Liaison Committee (AALC), made up of one senior representative from the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, the ACT Parks and Conservation Service, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Environment Australia.
The MOU has streamlined the management of the Australian Alps national parks so that the parks and nature reserves in different States are now run as consistently as possible. Where before there was duplication of research, development and management projects, there is now cooperation and sharing of information. The various park agencies often collaborate on research projects, share management techniques and even exchange staff.
The AALC is responsible for managing a $400,000 annual budget. Projects funded with this money are managed by four working groups covering natural heritage, cultural heritage, tourism and recreation and community relations. These groups do the hands-on work of the MOU by initiating and overseeing a range of projects that put the principle of cooperative management into action.
AALC projects include the protection of endangered species, studies of feral animals, weed eradication, preservation of culturally significant sites, recording the Aboriginal and European histories of the Alps, construction of trails for bushwalkers and skiers, production of tourist maps and educational products and training for staff across the Alps agencies.
Ten years down the track and still the only agreement of its kind in Australia, the MOU has been highly successful. The internationally respected World Conservation Union (IUCN) holds the MOU as the best example of its kind in the world. National park managers and rangers from mountain areas around the globe now come to Australia to see our system of cooperative management in action.
Now, the Alps cooperative management program has been given a new lease of life. The MOU was re-signed on 28 November 1996 by the Federal Minister for the Environment, Senator Robert Hill, and his counterparts from NSW, Ms Pam Allan, Victoria, Mrs Marie Tehan and the ACT, Mr Gary Humphries.
Meeting at the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council in Brisbane, the Ministers praised the success of the cooperative management program and outlined plans for the future in a new strategic plan.
"The strategic plan concentrates on improving visitor facilities and services in the national parks, increasing community awareness, participation and enjoyment, bolstering natural and cultural heritage conservation and improving the level of management expertise," the Ministers said.
"The new agreement and strategic plan aim to achieve the highest possible level of cross-border cooperation in conservation management. We are reaffirming our commitment to protecting the Alps and looking to the future."
The Alps are ten and looking forward to many more years of cooperation and protection.
Authored by David Mark
Media Officer
Australian Alps Liaison Committee