Ecological Restoration EcologicalRestoration

The environment we all live in had been in balance for generations before the spiral of degradation we now experience. Beyond ensuring sustainability, we also need to restore what we have lost, and reverse our current trajectory into the sixth mass extinction.

Naturally, ecological restoration goes hand in hand with restoring a safe climate and reducing greenhouse gas concentrations, but it will also be key to rewild, restore complex ecosystem processes and habitat, revive water stores and small water cycles, and rehabilitate desecrated land.

• End native logging
• Incentivise regenerative agriculture and biodiversity
• Manage watersheds and rehydrate Australia
• Cease fossil fuel extraction

End native logging and broadscale land clearing

When forests are cleared for housing, farmland, and timber, it destroys the habitats of native animals, releases stored carbon, and reduces the quality of the soil they were once grown upon.

• Cease all native logging and preserve remnant vegetation.

End fossil fuel extraction and rehabilitate land

Fossil fuels are not only the leading cause of global warming, but fugitive emissions and pollutants are spread throughout the air, water, and soil, damaging the environment for years to come.

• No new fossil fuel projects.
• Cease all government subsidy to fossil fuels, land clearing and native forest logging.
• 2-year window to cease fossil fuel extraction
• Establish rehabilitation bonds on all existing extraction projects appropriate to sufficiently repair mines and surroundings.

Recognise and incentivise biodiversity and regenerative agricultural practices

The biosphere is a complex system, and reductions in biodiversity, soil quality, and vegetation results in consequences that are far unforeseen by those interacting with the land. By utilising practises that preserve and restore the land to a historic state, we can expect them to be sustainable into the future.

• Provide carbon credits for carbon sequestration and rewilding.
• Develop and implement properly-resourced ecological restoration programs engaging Aboriginal knowledge keepers and the Indigenous Rangers Program.
• Multiply the capacity of the Indigenous Ranger Program to help implement Area Ecological Restoration plans.

Manage watersheds and restore the small water cycle

Inadvertently draining aquifers, wetlands, and waterways, along with the removal of vegetation has caused the destruction of the small water cycle, which relies on local evaporation to trigger rainfall. With the increasing prevalence of drought caused by the climate emergency, efforts to rehydrate Australia are required.

• Incorporate watershed restoration into Area Ecological Restoration Plans.
• Bestow the rights of nature on rivers and wetlands.
• Review all water licences for the Murray Darling.