Geological Society of Australia

Heritage

National Convenor
For more information about geological heritage, please contact:

Margaret Brocx
PO Box 477
Greenwood Western Australia
Email: geoheritage@iinet.net.au

Geoheritage, Geoparks and Geotourism Symposia at the 34th IGC
Brisbane, 5-10 August 2012
For more information click here

Protocol designed to connect Australian geoscientists with the Australian National Landscapes Program
Submission from the Geological Society of Australia, Geoheritage and Geotourism
Click here

Draft Heritage policy
Background to the Review of the GSA Heritage Policy
geoheritage@iinet.net.au

Background to the Review of the GSA Heritage Policy

While the issue of the out-of-date status of the GSA's Geological Heritage Policy has been of concern for some time, the Heritage Standing Committee meeting, held July 2010, was able to make significant progress on the matter, and a draft has been posted on the GSA website for wider comments and feedback. Since it was one of the triggers for the Policy review, I provide here some of the Commonwealth legislative background, and legislative changes, prior to and since the enactment of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, 1999, and its amendments, for the identification and protection of sites of geoheritage significance. The changes in Commonwealth legislation put an onus on the States to identify and conserve its geological heritage. It is therefore important for the Geological Society to develop a Policy in today's National legislative framework – one that is created by the membership and interested parties, and which is relevant to the Earth Sciences as it is important to science and education, and employment in the field of geology.

The Australian Constitution
The Australian Constitution does not directly permit the Commonwealth to legislate in respect of sites other than those that fall within its own jurisdiction. However, where Australia enters into international agreements, the Commonwealth can legislate to protect sites of certain categories. Australia is a signatory to a number of important International conventions, including the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, the Ramsar Convention, the Convention on Biological Diversity, amongst others.

The Register of the National Estate 1976-2007
Honouring an election promise in 1975, made by the Whitlam Government, the Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975 was enacted in Commonwealth legislation (by the Fraser Govt). Funding was made available to the States to identify (via a nomination process), and compile inventories of sites of national natural heritage significance. Australia's heritage of places and structures deriving from these inventories became known as the Registry of the National Estate. It was the first ever national survey of Australia's heritage of natural, Indigenous and historic places. Over the subsequent 30 years, the Register, better known as the RNE, came to include over 13 000 places of outstanding individual significance (with over 8000 outstanding nominations), together with places representative of Australia's natural and cultural history. For its time, it was the most significant national inventory of natural and cultural places in Australia.

However, by 1996, there was criticism that the RNE process had created duplication of effort in some areas, and had left complete gaps in others, causing confusion and unnecessary conflict. Work to correct this commenced on a number of fronts. The first of these was the review of Commonwealth/State Roles and Responsibilities for the Environment conducted by the Council of Australian Governments or COAG, and the second was the reform of Commonwealth environment and heritage legislation.

One of the outcomes of the COAG review was an agreement to rationalise existing Commonwealth/State arrangements for identifying, protecting and managing places of heritage significance. This was to be carried out through the cooperative development of a National Heritage Places Strategy — the first ever for Australia. In 1997 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) entered into a Heads of Agreement to amend the IGAE to include 30 'matters of national environmental significance (NES)' which the Commonwealth could legislate to protect see http://155.187.3.82/epbc/publications/coag-agreement/attachment-1.html
These included:
'3. Places of national significance
Commonwealth and State Heritage Ministers (and relevant Environment Ministers) have agreed to develop a co-operative national heritage places strategy. This strategy will: (i) set out the roles and responsibilities of the Commonwealth and the States; (ii) identify criteria, standards and guidelines for the protection of heritage by each level of government; and (iii) provide for the establishment of a list of places of national heritage significance. The Commonwealth's responsibility and interest will be defined thereafter.'

Matters of national environmental significance, except National Heritage, became the basis of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act (1999) With the enactment of the EPBC Act some significant changes to Australia's national heritage protection arrangements came about. Firstly, the Australian Heritage Commission was replaced by the Australian Heritage Council. Secondly, the protective powers of the Commonwealth were extended to include protection for sites of biodiversity and Indigenous significance, and later with the passing of the Heritage Bill (2003), sites of natural heritage significance. Thirdly, in 2003 the Register of the National Estate was frozen (at which point the Register contained 13 127 places), meaning that no new places could be added or removed. The Register of the National Estate will only continue as a statutory register until February 2012, i.e. from February 2012 all references to the RNE will be removed from Federal heritage legislation, and the Register will be only be maintained after this time as a publicly available archive.

The EPBC Act was founded on the 1997 COAG agreement by Commonwealth Agreements with the individual States agreeing to identify and legislate for the protection of natural heritage. However, largely, this has not occurred, and since 2004 (following the enactment of the Heritage Bill, which included natural heritage as places of national significance) the only places that are/will be transferred from the Register of the National Trust and listed on the new National Heritage have been or will be places that meet the criteria of comprising exceptional natural and cultural places that contribute to Australia's national identity, and that:

"define the critical moments in our development as a nation and reflects achievements, joys and sorrows in the lives of Australians. Also encompassing those places that reveal the richness of Australia's extraordinarily diverse natural heritage".

This includes objects, collections and intangible aspects such as community values, customs, languages, beliefs, traditions and festivals. Heritage forms part of Australia's cultural identity. Further, a ceiling, or cap, was placed on the number of sites that would be protected.

To put this into context, the change of status and capping of the number of listed places on the National Heritage List means that only a few of the 13 000+ natural, historic and Indigenous places of an entire continent will be listed for protection under new criteria for legislative protection. Currently, there are some 85 sites on the National Heritage List, including World Heritage Sites, buildings such as the Qantas hangar at Longreach and places such the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Flemington Race Course. In comparison, the US National Register of Historic Sites alone has over 60 000 places and there are over 450 000 historic places listed in the United Kingdom.

While there are some positive aspects to the enactment of EPBC Act, in that it does offer strong legislative protection to sites listed under the Act, the negative aspects include:

• restrictions as to the types and numbers of sites that can be nominated and listed;
• the decision on what sites are listed is Ministerial;
• there is no systematic inventory-based assessment of sites of Geoheritage significance, at the State level, by the Commonwealth, or by the States (with the exception of Tasmania);
• only a select few sites of National Significance will be afforded legislative protection;
• the potential loss of the enormous body of work, by the States' Geological Societies, and individuals, under the NHT funding and the RFA, that led to the listing of sites on the RNE;
• there are no defined criteria that allow for sites to be nominated for science and education;
• the EPBC Act is biased towards the protection of biodiversity;
• there is no recognition that geodiversity underpins biodiversity;
• there is no avenue for representation by the Geological Society of Australia to present the interests of science and education in the Earth Sciences in the selection and protection of sites of geoheritage significance.

The continuation of this state of affairs will result in non-recoverable damage, or the loss of not only sites that have been identified as of geoheritage significance, but those that have yet to be identified.

In a global context, save for Tasmania, the current framework of piecemeal and ad hoc conservation of sites of geoheritage significance at the Commonwealth, and State level is over 30 years behind the rest of the word in relation to inventory-based conservation, and at least 10 years behind the rest of the world in recognising the link between geodiversity and biodiversity.

For up-to date information on the state of the discipline of Geoheritage, I refer the readership to the European Association for the Conservation of European Geoheritage website www.progeo.se/ as well as the new scientific journal Geoheritage (www.springer.com/earth+sciences/geology/journal/12371)
and the Geological Society of Spain's initiatives in putting geoconservation on the international (IUCN) agenda: 'Major achievement towards geoconservation' (p 2; www.progeo.se/news/2009/pgn109.pdf).

Where to from here for the GSA in the development of a revised Heritage Policy Statement?

The current Commonwealth framework and selection criteria for the National Heritage list are not compatible with the Geological Society of Australia's objectives to conserve sites of geological significance for science and education.

There is a need to formulate a Policy Statement that reflects current thinking and global trends in geoconservation. Based on her work with the State Divisions in developing a revised Draft Policy, Susan White has provided the following background and comments as guidance for comments on the Draft Policy:
(1) The policy must reflect GSA's concern regarding the documentation and protection of various sites and features of significance at both National, State and local levels. Therefore, the State Divisions have tried to make sure this policy is sufficiently broad to cope with these situations.

(2) At the State (Division) level, the policy needs to be clear as to who can speak for GSA on geoheritage matters. Sometimes the issues are controversial, particularly in an industry where there are competing values, i.e., where extraction of economic geological material is a major activity. Some Divisions have very successful subcommittees, which work well with their Division committees; other Divisions have no such structures. In the latter case it therefore falls to the Division committee to fulfil this role.

(3) The GSA heritage policy is only in draft form compiled in 2010 and after discussion and feedback, it is intended to provide a revised Policy for ratification by the GSA Council at Brisbane in 2012. Opportunity to comment on the GSA heritage policy will be open till 31st July 2011. While the current policy has been a very robust and workable one; its general thrust has been one that most members find acceptable, but for some, the wording is dated. We need to reword and update the Policy without losing its advantages. One of those advantages is that it is focused on geoheritage, and not on all aspects of geotourism, geoconservation, or science and education.

The Standing Committee therefore asks you to go to read the Draft Policy critically and send your comments to: geoheritage@iinet.net.au

MARGARET BROCX
National Heritage Convenor

Footnote: 1

Policy
Sites and features have both been used in Australia to describe respectively areas of small or large extent, or aspects of geology and geomorphology such as a fossil locality, a type section, a landform or other geological features that may have no particular extent. The term geological monument has been used for sites and features that have been recognised as significant. The Society now uses the following definition:
Significant geological features (SGF) are those features of special scientific or educational value which form the essential basis of geological education, research and reference. These features are considered by the geological community to be worthy of protection and preservation.
The GSA's Heritage Policy details these principles further.

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Links
Victorian Division Heritage Subcommittee: www.vic.gsa.org.au