State of Environment Report 2023 launched
The EPA has released the State of the Environment Report for 2023, making a number of recommendations to help safeguard South Australia’s environment, with a strong focus on climate change and biodiversity losses.
This year, for the first time, the report has also incorporated the views of Aboriginal peoples as the traditional custodians in protecting and restoring Country, including an expert report and recommendations on how Aboriginal peoples’ cultural perspectives can be more effectively incorporated in approaches to environmental protection.
Presiding Member of the EPA Board, Cathy Cooper, said the report showed that unless urgent measures are taken, climate emergency and biodiversity losses will become crises for the environment and our communities.
“South Australians can be proud of the work that has been done to help protect and restore our environment,” she said.
“South Australia has taken leadership in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through renewable energy generation, progressing a circular economy through resource recovery and removing a range of plastics from the waste stream.
“Programs have also been implemented to tackle biodiversity loss and improve management of our water resources.
“However, the 2023 State of the Environment Report shows that for some areas, particularly climate change impacts and biodiversity, the trends continue to get worse.
“Plans and actions have not delivered improvements at a scale and speed sufficient to address these impacts.”
Ms Cooper said that the State of the Environment Report highlights pressures that have the potential to impact the environment and makes recommendations for action.
“Accountability will be important to ensure actions are resourced, enabled, driven and supported to ensure their implementation,” she said.
“This report is not just for government, but also for industry, communities and individuals so that we can work together to ensure the future and prosperity of our beautiful state, for generations to come.”
The five recommendations from the 2023 report are:
- Taking action: That the South Australian Government develops and implements an overarching framework that contextualises and orients its policies and actions for protecting and restoring the environment, identifying critical priorities based on level of risk and clarifying the relationships and interdependencies between them in delivering co benefits.
- Responding to climate change: That the South Australian Government notes the links and interdependencies between emissions reduction, climate change adaptation and different societal sectors, and tasks relevant agencies with collaborating in risk assessment, response planning and program delivery to capture the benefits of a coordinated approach.
- Biodiversity protection: That the South Australian Government ensures that all conservation policies, strategies and programs, particularly habitat restoration and rewilding, consider the impacts of climate change, and incorporate climate adaptation into their design.
- Management of plastics: That the South Australian Government notes the plastics ‘expert paper’ and tasks agencies to review and recommend if the suggestions on regulatory and procurement changes, design standards, recycling technology improvement and behaviour change can be used to better facilitate the circular economy, environment protection and human health outcomes.
- Inclusion of Aboriginal values and knowledge: That the South Australian Government ensures that, in establishing a South Australian First Nations Voice to Parliament, an Aboriginal Ministerial Advisory Group and introducing a Biodiversity Act incorporating knowledge of Aboriginal South Australians, it creates and implements an effective framework for bringing First Nations values, knowledge and expertise into the state’s efforts to protect, restore and report on the health of the environment.
EPA Director of Science and Systems, Keith Baldry, said that the report includes assessment of pressures and impacts to our environment in South Australia.“This report addresses the key pressures, environmental trends, and our responses, across regional and metropolitan parts of South Australia,” he said.
“This includes climate change, air quality, habitats and vegetation, our waters including the River Murray, and our marine environment.
“It looks at liveability in urban and rural environments, and how water management, green space, transport, waste, air quality and energy, affect how we live in a changing climate.”
The Department for Environment and Water (DEW) is responsible for preparing South Australia’s environmental trend and condition report cards, which form an integral part of the report.
DEW Biodiversity Science and Knowledge Principal Advisor Dr Daniel Rogers said South Australia’s native biodiversity continued to decline – a pattern that was reflected in national and global trends.
“The key drivers of this decline are land-use change and habitat clearance, invasive species, and the impacts of a changing climate. These drivers also interact, amplifying their effects,” he said.
Dr Rogers said the effects of climate change on society and the environment were real and getting worse, highlighted by a 1.1 degree C increase in average temperatures since the 1970s
The State of the Environment report is designed to improve understanding of the environmental challenges and opportunities South Australia faces, and further support the effort towards sustainability.
