Parks VIC Forced to Ask for Donations to Fund Major Government Climate Project

 

Parks Victoria has fundraised $800,000 of the $25 million needed to make the Prom Sanctuary vision a reality. But this has raised some eyebrows, as it’s uncommon for national parks to rely on donations from the public to fund works.

Why Wilsons Prom?

Yiruk Wamoon/Wilsons Promontory is a 125,000-acre peninsula on the south coast of Victoria and the state’s southernmost point. Despite the large area of the national park, the peninsula is only 10km wide at the narrowest point, making it a prime candidate for investment in protecting native species from invasive species, such as deer, foxes, and cats, through a predator-proof fence.

About six years ago, plans for the Prom Sanctuary were announced – a ’20-year vision to establish a climate change refuge where vulnerable wildlife and habitats thrive’.

The key goals of this plan are threefold: restore Country, eradicate introduced pests like foxes and cats, and bring endangered and locally extinct wildlife back from the brink. By doing so, Parks Victoria and project partners, including Traditional Owner groups, Zoos Victoria, and CSIRO are hoping to increase visitation to the area whilst enabling sustainable visitor experiences.

Why does Parks Vic need our donations?

In 2021, when the Prom Sanctuary concept started to become a reality, Parks Victoria’s annual budget was $337 million, of which $23 million went towards the Wilsons Prom Revitalisation project. While this might sound like a lot, most of it went towards infrastructure rather than ecological programs, such as upgrading the Tidal River Visitor and Education Centre, improving car parks and traffic management, and building new accommodation units.

In the 2023-24 financial year, Parks Victoria’s funding was $338 million, an increase of just $1 million in four years. Considering Parks Victoria is responsible for managing 3,000 land and maritime parks across the state in the worsening climate crisis, and inflation is making everything more expensive, Parks Victoria simply doesn’t have the funds for big, bold projects such as the Prom Sanctuary. This is just one of many competing priorities of parks at the moment, and the government agency is under intense scrutiny from all angles.

But aren’t our taxes enough?

In short, no. In 2021, the Victorian state expenditure was approximately $90 billion. On that basis, Parks Victoria received about 0.37% of the annual state budget to manage 18% of our public land areas and 5% of marine waters.

Victoria is the most cleared state in the country, but it’s facing a proliferation of invasive species, increased visitation (via the government’s free camping initiative), and worsening impacts of climate change. In 2021, data from the VNPA stated that national parks and other conservation reserves in Victoria contribute more than $2.5 billion to the state economy and reduce health costs by at least $200 million per year. This shortsighted, money-first attitude to our national parks is driving them into the ground and taking the health of native flora and fauna with it.

The Invisible Price Tag

This isn’t to mention the cost of losing species and ecosystems to climate change and habitat loss. In Parks Victoria’s Closer to Nature podcast, Prom rangers explain how they have taken inspiration from the USA, where the infamous Joshua trees are dying. Sadly, the rate of decline is impossible to keep up with, and ecologists must be selective as to where and how they use their resources.

Parks Vic Rangers are adopting the ‘RAD Framework’, which stands for ‘Resist, Accept, Direct’, and creates a pathway for thinking about climate change and acting in a way that’s positive and constructive to the challenges our ecosystems face.  Resist refers to identifying where ecosystems have resisted the negative impacts of climate change, then accepting that loss will occur, and finally, directing resources and outcomes to locations and climates that will prove more symbiotic over time.

Wilsons Promontory fits the RAD framework, as it’s surrounded by the cool waters of Bass Strait, making it 5 to 10 degrees cooler than the adjacent mainland. Combined with its ability to become predator-free and being home to nine major ecosystems and 153 threatened species, it makes it the perfect candidate for the RAD Framework.

But is it right?

Asking the public to cough up their own money to fund this ambitious project may seem steep, but who can blame Parks Vic for trying? When their work is so critically underfunded and they witness the effects climate change is already having on these landscapes firsthand, you can’t blame them for trying everything at their disposal to make the Prom Sanctuary a reality.

In an ideal world, this project would be fully funded by the government and rolled out in a timely manner that includes all of the key stakeholders, such as Traditional Owners, ecologists, scientists and the local community. However, as we see time and time again, from government to big business, conserving nature isn’t seen as a worthy investment. Asking people who love the Prom and want to see species such as Eastern ground parrot and Southern brown bandicoot thriving in a predator-free sanctuary might not cover the $25 million price tag, but every dollar is integral. Because once it’s gone, it’ll be too late.

Feature image by Mack Roth