At a glance
The Australian Heritage Strategy, launched in December 2015, recognises Australia’s significant achievements in heritage management and sets out a program that aims to improve the effectiveness of heritage management. Successful implementation of the Australian Heritage Strategy can reduce pressures and minimise risks to Australia’s heritage, while helping to retain and communicate those values that make Australia’s heritage places special. Australia is continuing to identify, protect, manage and celebrate heritage. However, identification processes and programs for Australian heritage remain inconsistent and erratic. The National Reserve System has expanded—particularly through the addition of new Indigenous Protected Areas, resulting in a more representative system of natural heritage places—but there are still gaps, and significant natural resources are yet to be included. Indigenous heritage continues to lack a national perspective or integrated coordination between jurisdictions. In many cases, protection of Indigenous heritage continues to rely on general provisions in legislation, sometimes leading to narrowly focused decisions and incremental destruction. Many historic heritage places have been identified, and resources are being directed at improving the representativeness and integrity of heritage registers, but the registers remain skewed towards particular aspects of history and a select group of values.
There is considerable scope for continued improvement so that planning systems, land zonings and related regulations can encourage appropriate conservation outcomes. Legislation that is focused on enabling development, as well as some building codes and development industry standards, continue to create pressure for demolition or other inappropriate change. The reactive nature of the development-consent process and an inadequate knowledge of the total heritage resource militate against well-informed, values-based conservation outcomes. Nevertheless, there are excellent examples of heritage conservation being achieved through clever adaptive re-use, increased connection between Indigenous people and their Country, and management of public heritage assets using well-prepared, values-based management plans.
Funding for assessing and managing historic places is difficult to measure on a national basis, because there are inconsistent approaches to the allocation of available resources and gaps in reporting. There has been considerable variation in allocation of grant funding for heritage conservation projects at the state and territory level. At the national level, some programs—such as Your Community Heritage and Protecting National Historic Sites—have targeted specific components of Australia’s heritage, with some outstanding outcomes. However, a combination of declining resources (both human and financial) have worked against a positive long-term prognosis for heritage management.
Despite excellent heritage management processes and programs, the resources allocated to heritage identification, protection and monitoring at both the national and state and territory levels have generally remained steady or declined. The success of the Australian Heritage Strategy will rely heavily on participation by both government and nongovernment organisations, allocation of additional resources, and the reduction of inappropriate or unnecessary processes in the Australian heritage management system.
As noted in Australia: state of the environment 2011, community perceptions of the value of heritage as a public good are still not reflected in commensurate public-sector resourcing, nor in incentives for private owners. The Australian Heritage Strategy seeks to address this issue through national leadership, strong partnerships and engaged communities.
Managing Australia’s heritage requires action to protect heritage places from pressures, to retain their values. Effective heritage management requires a holistic approach across the spectrum of relevant pressures, rather than individual responses for every pressure (see Box HER24). There is a well-established, logical process for effective heritage management: understand the place and its values, identify the issues (i.e. the pressures) and then manage the place in response. This process is set out in key guideline documents such as the Burra Charter, the Ask First Guidelines and the Australian Natural Heritage Charter, but it is not always reflected in statutory requirements. The outcomes achieved by applying this process and the ability to gather information that allows informed judgement are dependent on the availability of adequate resources.
The following discussion and assessment summaries consider the effectiveness of Australian heritage management according to components of the management process—understanding, planning, inputs, processes and outcomes. This structure parallels the logic and process of key Australian heritage management guidelines.
Box HER24 The Great Barrier Reef-World Heritage in focus
Heritage issues have been prominent in the media and community debate in recent years. In particular, the consideration by the World Heritage Committee of potential inclusion of the Great Barrier Reef on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2015, and the subsequent major coral bleaching event of 2016, have received extensive media coverage (Slezak & Hunt 2016).
The Australian and Queensland governments have prepared the Reef 2050 Long-term Sustainability Plan and established the associated Reef Trust:
The Reef Trust is one of the key mechanisms to assist in the delivery of the Reef 2050 long-term sustainability plan. It will provide cost-effective, strategic investment to support on-ground action for the long-term protection and conservation of the Great Barrier Reef and focuses on known critical areas for investment: improving water quality and coastal habitat along the reef, controlling the current outbreak of crown-of-thorns starfish, and protecting threatened and migratory species, particularly dugong and turtles. (Australian Government 2015a:21)
The Reef Trust and the 2050 Plan are part of an integrated plan to improve water quality and coastal habitats, and protect threatened and migratory species such as dugong and turtles. To date, $210 million has been allocated, including additional funding in 2016 for addressing outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish. In addition, $101 million is being contributed from the National Landcare Programme. The total projected investment of Australian governments to protect the Great Barrier Reef during the next decade exceeds $2 billion.
Detailed guidelines have been prepared to assist with good decision-making for the Great Barrier Reef, including consideration of actions that may have significant impact and the requirements for referral under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. These guidelines are intended to facilitate conservation of the ‘outstanding universal value’ and National Heritage value of the Great Barrier Reef (DoE 2014).
Nevertheless, the Reef remains extremely vulnerable to climate change–induced heat stress and ocean acidification, as well as other anthropogenic pressures, including indirect impacts arising from major development such as the recently approved Carmichael Coal Mine and Rail Project in the Galilee Basin.
Preliminary findings from research conducted by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science suggest that, in early 2016, up to one-quarter of the coral on the Reef suffered from bleaching caused by heat stress, mostly concentrated in the northern third of the Reef, from Port Douglas to Cape York (GBRMPA 2016a; Figure HER16).
Australian Government & Queensland Government (Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy) (2015). Reef 2050 long-term sustainability plan, Australian Government, Canberra. https://www.environment.gov.au/marine/gbr/publications/reef-2050-long-term-sustainability-plan
Professor Richard Mackay AM
