National Parks & Wildlife Services - a Model for Inefficiencies

In her recent announcement about the trialling of volunteers taking part in orchestrated culls, The Hon. Robyn Parker - Minister for Environment & Heritage - established that any volunteer hunter would be held to the same standard as NPWS staff.

"volunteer participants [will be] held to an
equivalent high standard that currently applies to NPWS staff and contractors" - Ms Parker

 This is a wonderful sentiment and I applaud the ambition of her statement. However, if only the reality were true.

The sad truth is that National Parks are grossly under-resourced and the skill of their staff, particularly those in higher management roles, leaves a lot to be desired.

In the photo below, supplied by a friend who frequents the area, we can see the impact of wild pigs on the riparian zone of a river that is listed as critical habitat for the endangered Macquarie Perch. One of the key threatening processes for the Macquarie Perch is siltation of deep water holes and spawning grounds and it doesn't take a genius to work out that if this particular river were to rise only a few centimetres, highly mobile and dispersive sediment would begin to wash into the river. The fellow who supplied this photo detailed a number of complaints to various NSW Gov. departments, including NPWS, however almost two months on nothing has been done.

Erosion from foraging feral pigs. The river in the background is identified
critical habitat for the endangered Macquarie Perch. 

It is a sad reality that this scene is repeated across many National Parks. I have seen similar damage across vast areas of the Coxs River in the Blue Mountains National Park. Interestingly the appearance of pigs in this case followed the change of land tenure from private to public.

It is not all about a lack of feral animal management though.

In the summer just gone we were witness to perhaps one of the most devastating incidences of destruction by neglect, when the Wambelong bushfire razed over 95% of the Warrumbungle National Park in northern NSW (Monster bushfire ravages Warrumbungle NP, Warrumbungle National Park sprouts regrowth after catastrophic bushfire). It is almost inconceivable that 95% of a National Park can be razed in this day and age.

Since the fire, heavy criticism has been leveled at its management in its early stages, management that fell to NPWS.  Irrespective of any neglect in the years prior to the devastating fire through a failure to maintain fire trails, conduct hazard reduction operations, etc, the decisions made in the first few hours of the fire - it ultimately led to the scorching of over 54,000Ha, 53 homes razed and hundreds of livestock burnt - highlights the NPWS management's inability to manage bushfires.

On top of all this, there are now allegations of corrupt behaviour - sufficient to dismiss one ranger - where it is alleged benefits were accepted in return for allowing poachers access to the Paroo-Darling National Park in far western NSW. One has to question: is the governance in place is robust enough if this sort of behaviour can occur (National Parks and Wildlife Service deals with drugs for hunting scandal in NSW's west)?

All in all, the Minister's assertion that NPWS are the epitome of public land managers is evidence of just how out of touch she is with what is occurring on the ground. The truth is that NPWS management have failed numerous times to achieve the objectives of National Parks. The suggestion that it is these people that will oversee any planned pest control shoots is a dangerous one - they have failed so far in many of their undertakings, what's to say they'll reverse this form when peoples' lives are at stake?