Govt pledges $100m for endangered species
A re-elected Baird government will commit $100 million to protect threatened NSW plants and animals including brush-tailed wallabies, hairy nosed wombats and endangered parrots.
NSW Environment Minister Rob Stokes made the announcement at Taronga Zoo on Friday, saying the funds, to be spent over five years, would help secure survival of the state's endangered 970 plants and animals.
Mr Stokes described the funding boost as the "very biggest commitment ever in Australian political history towards the survival of this state's endangered plants and animals".
He said the pledge was fully funded and would focus on "recovery plans" for those species on the threatened list.
Mr Stokes said the government was focused on plans to protect iconic animals while not "forgetting every other species in NSW".
He also said threatened species would fare better under a returned coalition government than under Labor.
"When I look at Labor's plan, their plan ... is based on saving one species on the Northern Rivers, it's really just the north coast koalas," Mr Stokes said.
"If I'm a koala living anywhere else in NSW I'm certainly not invited to their koala summit, and if I'm a southern hairy nosed wombat, well, I'm forgotten altogether under Labor."
In a lighter moment Mr Stokes was then asked by a reporter: "Are you a southern hairy nosed wombat?".
"I am actually not a hairy nosed wombat," he replied, noting that "970 species face specific threats in NSW".
Speaking in a zoo enclosure containing an emu, quokka, kangaroo, echidna and bush turkey, Mr Stokes said the $100 million would be distributed in a number of streams, with about $57 million earmarked for "site specific action".
WWF-Australia welcomed Friday's announcement and urged the government to finalise recovery plans and move to on-the-ground, practical action as quickly possible.
"We call for the continued strategic growth of NSW National Parks and reserves, in particular to secure habitat of animals and plants to enable them to adapt to climate change," CEO Dermot O'Gorman said in a statement.
Protection of habitat should be the first step of any threatened species recovery program, he said.
"WWF has estimated that more than half of NSW threatened species lack adequate habitat protection, and 16 have no protection at all," he said.
