WeRise · Policy platform
Nature & Biodiversity
Key findings
- Australia has one of the world’s worst records for modern mammal extinction and ongoing biodiversity decline.
- Land clearing and fragmentation remain major drivers of species decline.
- Predators, weeds and invasive processes remain a major pressure across ecosystems.
- Heat, drought, fire, marine heat and shifting rainfall now intensify biodiversity loss across multiple systems.
Part 01
The Case for Change
Why Nature & Biodiversity matters
The living world cannot be negotiated with
Ecological limits are real whether politics recognises them or not.
The strongest argument for biodiversity protection is that the systems being damaged are not symbolic. They are functional. Rivers clean and move water. Forests store carbon and regulate local climate. Wetlands buffer floods. Pollinators support food systems. Mangroves and reefs protect coastlines. When these systems degrade, people inherit the cost — economically, physically and morally.
Australia’s biodiversity decline is not merely sad. It is destabilising. The current policy mix is not commensurate with the problem. Too much depends on narrow project assessments, weak enforcement and the assumption that environmental damage can be traded away through offsets or deferred repair. In reality, many losses are cumulative and some are irreversible.
A WeRise position insists that protection comes first where values are irreplaceable, and that restoration be treated as serious public work rather than corporate reputation management. This means stronger laws, better data, larger and better-connected reserves, river and marine protection, invasive-species control and public investment in ecological recovery. It also means acknowledging that development which permanently destroys critical habitat is not “balanced”; it is simply destructive.
The case is practical as well as ethical. Protecting biodiversity reduces future repair costs, supports farming and water security, preserves cultural landscapes and makes the wider climate transition more resilient.
Part 02
Evidence and Experience
Nature & Biodiversity: what other countries show
Recovery requires law, money and time
Costa Rica · New Zealand · European Union · United States
Biodiversity recovery is difficult everywhere, but several comparisons show useful principles. Costa Rica demonstrates the power of long-term restoration, payments and national commitment. New Zealand shows what strong endangered-species and invasive-species work can achieve. The European Union illustrates how supranational standards can push habitat protection and restoration, though unevenly. The United States shows both the importance and the political vulnerability of strong species-protection law.
Costa Rica
1980s–present
- Forest recovery, conservation incentives and protected-area strategy. Key findings: long-term restoration can reverse some historical damage; incentives and protection can work together; success depends on durable state commitment.
Restoration should be funded as a generational project, not a grant cycle.
New Zealand
Ongoing
- Intensive species recovery and invasive-predator control. Key findings: island ecosystems can recover with sustained intervention; invasive-predator control requires scale and consistency; endemic biodiversity needs explicit prioritisation.
Threatened-species recovery needs serious public funding, not symbolic listing.
European Union
Natura 2000 / restoration frameworks
- Habitat protection and restoration planning under Natura 2000 and the EU Nature Restoration Law. Key findings: common standards can lift protection across jurisdictions; restoration targets improve accountability; compliance remains politically contested.
National standards and measurable targets matter.
United States
Endangered Species Act era
- Species protection law and habitat safeguards under the ESA. Key findings: strong law can materially prevent extinctions; enforcement and litigation can compensate for political weakness; legal strength is vulnerable to partisan rollback.
Environmental law needs enforceability and institutional durability.
Part 03
Costs and Trade-offs
The cost of Nature & Biodiversity
Damage delayed is repair multiplied
Protecting nature costs money; losing it costs more and lasts longer.
Biodiversity protection requires serious public investment: reserve management, restoration, invasive-species control, monitoring, Indigenous ranger programs, river and marine management and stronger compliance. Yet many of the costs of non-protection are hidden or deferred — declining ecosystem services, increased disaster risk, agricultural instability, tourism loss and irreversible species decline.
A proper WeRise costing distinguishes between protective regulation, direct public conservation spending, co-governance and restoration programs, and climate-adaptation work for ecosystems.
| Item | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| National habitat protection and restoration fund | To be modelled | Note: Restoration, connectivity and threatened-ecosystem support |
| Invasive species and biosecurity acceleration package | To be modelled | Note: Predator, weed and ecological threat reduction |
| Indigenous ranger and Country co-governance expansion | To be modelled | Note: Public funding with land and cultural outcomes |
| Environmental law, data and compliance strengthening | To be modelled | Note: Monitoring, enforcement and public accountability |
| Net cost estimate | Requires specified measures and timelines | Cost figures are indicative at this stage and require specified measures and timelines before publication. |
The strongest objections to Nature & Biodiversity
Stronger protections block jobs or housing.
Sometimes environmental rules do constrain particular projects. But the answer is not to treat irreplaceable ecosystems as expendable; it is to plan development better and earlier.
Offsets and market mechanisms can solve the problem.
They can play a limited role, but many habitats and ecological relationships are not fungible. Some losses simply cannot be recreated elsewhere.
Australia already protects large areas.
Area alone is not enough if ecosystems are fragmented, degraded or poorly managed. Protection quality matters as much as quantity.
Ecological systems are too complex to predict intervention outcomes.
Correct — which is precisely why precaution, monitoring and adaptive management matter. Uncertainty is a reason for care, not inaction.
Part 04
The Australian Design
How Nature & Biodiversity would work in Australia
Protect first, restore seriously
Biodiversity policy should be built around integrity, connectivity and enforceable limits.
A WeRise biodiversity framework begins with a hierarchy: avoid destruction where values are critical, minimise unavoidable impacts where possible, and treat restoration as additional public work rather than permission to damage. This requires stronger federal and state law, clearer no-go areas, cumulative-impact assessment and much better data.
The model should also expand the scale of active recovery — restoration corridors, river and wetland repair, invasive-species control, marine protection and Indigenous-led land and sea management. Threatened-species policy should not stop at listing. It should fund actual survival.
An Australian design should connect biodiversity policy to water, climate, farming and planning rather than isolating it inside environment departments. The living world does not respect portfolio boundaries; policy should stop pretending it does.
Part 05
People and Transition
Part 06
Related policies
Nature & Biodiversity sits within a wider set of WeRise policies.
- Planet & Future: more WeRise policies in this pillar
- WeRise: all 29 policies across seven pillars
Notes
Sources and Supporting Documents
- Australian State of the Environment Report. soe.dcceew.gov.au
- CSIRO — Biodiversity and ecosystems research. www.csiro.au
- NZ Department of Conservation. www.doc.govt.nz
- US Fish & Wildlife Service — Endangered Species. www.fws.gov
- European Commission — Nature and Biodiversity. environment.ec.europa.eu
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