Habitat is crucial to the survival of South Australia’s woodland birds. To save these species, though, which are at risk, we must act now, writes DAVID PATON.
BIRD week is a time to celebrate our feathered friends. But the cacophony of diverse calls that makes a dawn chorus special is diminishing. Woodland birds are disappearing from our landscapes. We are heading towards a “Silent Spring”.
Rachel Carson in the 1960s used these emotive words to draw attention to losses of birds to pesticides.
And the world acted. Now, if we are to save our woodland birds, we must act.
Adelaide’s Mount Lofty region is a biodiversity hotspot, one of just 15 recognised in Australia.
Biodiversity hotpots should be the last place where species are disappearing – but disappearing they are. They are heading towards extinction.
Surveys of the distributions of woodland birds in 2012-14 showed most species had declined since 1984-85, many by 30-50 per cent.
Two species shown here, the diamond firetail and restless flycatcher, were often seen in the foothills when I was young, and restless flycatchers frequented the Botanic Garden in the 1950s.
These species have long since gone from these areas and they continue to disappear further afield.
Vegetation clearance is often proffered as the cause of woodland bird declines. Before the 1980s, there was extensive vegetation clearance, but it has been negligible since.
In the early 1980s, South Australia led the country by introducing legislation that protected native vegetation. Vegetation clearance was stopped before 1984, but the birds continued to decline.
However, the declines are a legacy of vegetation clearance before the 1980s. There is a simple relationship: the less habitat that remains, the fewer species that can be supported. When vegetation is first cleared, most birds do not immediately disappear.
But as time passes, species do disappear, as they are unable to survive in the fragments of woodland that remain. This ongoing loss of species is known as an extinction debt.
Based on the area of remaining woodland, more than 50 species of woodland birds are predicted to eventually disappear from the Mount Lofty region.
The extinction debt is large and still being paid. All of the conservation reserves that I visited in the 1970s have lost species.
There is still hope and it is not “doom and gloom” yet, because the populations of most species have not yet disappeared.
The time lag provides a brief window of opportunity, but we have to act now. The solution is simple. Reestablish substantial amounts of woodland habitat and give homes back to the birds.
The environmental debate of today is merely a squabble between governments over energy and water for human consumption. Governments have all but given up on biodiversity.
For example, earlier this year, the South Australian Parliament released findings of an inquiry into the state’s biodiversity.
Their report acknowledges that biodiversity is declining and proclaims that biodiversity is everyone’s business. But perhaps not theirs, given funding for biodiversity has declined (in concert with the birds).
Biodiversity protection should be a core government activity. Perhaps our politicians, having released their report, believe their job is done.
Suggestions to expand naturebased tourism to help the state’s economy seem ludicrous.
What international and interstate tourists would be drawn to this state, a state that continues to ignore the demise of our wildlife? Nature-based tourism needs the wildlife to be credible and sustainable.
The time to invest in biodiversity is now. Tomorrow will be too late. I ask the major political parties to stand up and take control by announcing longterm environmental policies that aim to halt, and then reverse, the loss of woodland birds.
I only hope my plea does not fall on deaf ears.
For if it does, the “Silent Spring” will have already begun. DAVID PATON IS AN ECOLOGIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
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