Conservation Groups Participation in ESD Working Groups

The involvement of the Australian Conservation Foundation and World Wide Fund for Nature in the ESD Working Groups began in 1990, when they were among four environmental groups which made a joint submission to the Federal Government.

Their submission, entitled Ecologically Sustainable Development, was a response to an earlier Commonwealth discussion paper on the subject.

Working Group meetings began in October last year, but it wasn't till December that the joint environment groups taking part received a guarantee of funding, which they had made a pre-requisite for being in the process.

In January this year the ACF and WWF received the first part of the $800,000 of government funding to enable them to be part of the ESD process. The funding has gone towards setting up the ACF-WWF Policy and Liaison Units, which have a staff strength of 12.

Staff on the Units provide research and policy direction for environmental representatives on the industry Working Groups, and prepare materials for community liaison work. Where required, Policy Unit staff also sit on the industry Working Groups.

Part of their overall aim is to maintain an integrative role in the ESD process. They will be preparing papers on a variety of inter-sectoral issues such as biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions.

This relates to the original submission, in which environment groups argued that the process of setting up sectoral groups in itself was intrinsically flawed, and that a mechanism was needed to keep track of issues which cut across some or all of the sectors.

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