Status and trends in wetland conservation policy under climate change in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia

The mechanism outlines a comprehensive, systems-based conservation planning for integrated wetland management, prioritising conservation of representative wetlands and their biota, including threatened and migratory species. It employs the driver–pressure–state–impact–response (DPSIR) framework for risk assessment (Laura et al. 2009), which is widely adopted for marine and coastal ecosystems (Patrício et al. 2016). Rouillard et al. (2018) noted that wetland policy frameworks were effective when policy mechanisms included defined targets to reduce pressures and threats. Therefore, we compiled the threatening processes recognised by the Commonwealth, Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia (Table 1) as a basis for examining whether the policy mechanisms addressed these threats. We utilised the DPSIR framework to identify areas for improvement in the assessed conservation mechanisms.

The mechanism is cross-scale, i.e. it aligns with international treaty goals in setting regional targets for conservation of representative areas of ecosystems, migratory and threatened species, wise use of all wetlands, and consideration of climate change adaptation.

The mechanism is climate-adaptive in that it considers the impacts of climate change and contains adaptation measures with clear goals and targets.

The mechanism is produced with input from a broad range of stakeholders and rights holders, including communities and Indigenous groups.

The mechanism includes secure funding, a clearly defined administrative structure with clear roles and responsibilities for specific legislation, policies and implementation.

The mechanism outlines a monitoring, evaluation and learning system, enabling strategic adaptive management with defined review periods based on new knowledge and needs.

The initial scoring of all 43 mechanisms against the 6 indicators as per the criteria for assessment (Table 2) was conducted by the lead author (F. Tanveer), followed by a review and discussion in the entire author team in a series of meetings. The team discussed the subjectivity of qualitative ranking, initial scores and their justifications. Any disagreements were resolved through consensus, ensuring a consistent application of the criteria. The final scores are presented in Table 3.

Conservation mechanisms in the Commonwealth are comprehensive, all scoring 2, except the National Water Security Plan, which focuses primarily on water scarcity and neglects other ecological issues (score of 1) (Table 3). This targeted management approach overlooks the conservation of representative ecological communities and threatened or migratory species. Although all Victorian mechanisms scored 2, their subsidiary strategies and action plans were mostly ranked 1 (Table 3), meaning that, despite a comprehensive framework in place, the guiding principles and targets are overlooked in on-ground planning actions. For overarching policies and programs, New South Wales scored markedly lower than did Victoria and South Australia. Whereas South Australia demonstrates a strong and clear framework for ecological conservation, with 7/9 mechanisms scoring 2, both Victoria and New South Wales exhibit significant overlaps (Table S1) and shortcomings in their respective mechanisms, particularly in addressing comprehensive ecological issues relating wetlands.

There is disparity in the recognition and management of ecological threats across jurisdictions, with South Australia demonstrating clearer conservation objectives than do Victoria and New South Wales, whereas climate change remains inadequately addressed as a significant threat to biodiversity. Objectives to address climate impacts are included in national and state conservation policies, yet the three states do not list climate change as a threat. Similarly, hydrological alteration is not listed as a threat by the Commonwealth, despite the considerable efforts in the Basin Plan to address it (Table 1). This indicates inconsistent processes for threat recognition among the jurisdictions we studied. Also, although most policies recognise threats such as habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, diseases, climate change and environmental degradation worsened by climate change, only a few include targets to climate change impacts to enable action through adaptation mechanisms (Table 3).

All Commonwealth conservation frameworks reference international underpinnings explicitly. However, the overarching national water reform frameworks (NWI and National Plan for Water Security) lack alignment with the conservation objectives related to wetland ecosystems. South Australia effectively translates international and national objectives in its strategies and plans, followed by New South Wales and Victoria (Table 4). Although policies of Victoria and New South Wales align with the national objective of maintaining a comprehensive, adequate and representative system of reserves, South Australia has a strategic framework to implement international commitments in Australia’s Strategy for the National Reserve System 2009–2030 (National Resource Management Ministerial Council 2010).

Most Commonwealth frameworks (7/11) and Victorian mechanisms (5/13) lack clear climate adaptation targets, including Victoria’s Climate Change Strategy, a legislated framework with no adaptation mechanisms. In New South Wales, 4/10 policy mechanisms scored 2, others lacked a clear definition of indicators and targets to enable adaptation actions. South Australia, with 7/9 mechanisms scoring 2, has a legislated climate adaptation framework and regional plans that include climate adaptation targets. However, South Australia’s Climate Change Action Plan 2021–2025 (SA Department for Environment and Water 2020) prioritises economic considerations for climate adaptation over ecosystem conservation.

Commonwealth mechanisms involve high stakeholder engagement, incorporating consultations and Indigenous perspectives, knowledge and entitlement rights, with 10/11 scoring 2. However, although the development of the Basin Plan involved extensive and prolonged stakeholder consultation (score of 2), its implementation remains highly contested. The process has been criticised by some stakeholders, particularly Indigenous groups, for not adequately translating consultation into collaborative governance or equitable outcomes, reflecting a limitation in moving from participation to co-creation (Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations versus the Commonwealth 2023; Wyborn et al. 2023). In Victoria, policy planning engages a diverse group of stakeholders and rights holders, with 8/13 scoring 2. Nonetheless, Indigenous involvement was not evident in some instances, and community participation mainly focused on information sessions rather than active co-creation. In New South Wales, only 5/10 mechanisms scored 2, indicating limited community engagement. In contrast, South Australia was more inclusive, with 8/9 mechanisms scoring 2, reflecting the integration of Indigenous knowledge and active community participation.

The Commonwealth has the most sophisticated administrative structure, with well-defined funding sources and effective 8/11 mechanisms, scoring 2. Victoria followed these with 9/13 mechanisms having good characteristics of a well-organised administrative set-up backed by the identification of funding partners and resources. The South Australian landscape boards provide similar levels of administration, but only 4/9 of the mechanisms have a high degree of governance and adequate funding arrangements. In New South Wales, the administrative framework lacked integrated conservation policy approaches to enable collaborative and effective implementation, and 5/10 mechanisms scored 2.

Conservation policies and programs in all jurisdictions have established monitoring, evaluation and learning processes, with most policy mechanisms defining clear roles, responsibilities and review dates. In the Commonwealth, New South Wales and Victoria, 8/11, 8/10 and 9/13 mechanisms scored 2 respectively, indicating that an effective monitoring, evaluation and learning system is in place. Similarly, 8/9 mechanisms, scoring 2, in South Australia have an effective monitoring, evaluation, and learning system in place, as well as systems for legislative review and incorporating new knowledge on drivers of change.

Overall, 28/43 mechanisms were reasonably comprehensive, whereas the rest, although being based on systematic conservation planning for targeted management, do not enable the principles of representativeness (Table 3). Along with advances in wetland conservation planning (Nel et al. 2009) and management of rivers (Poff and Matthews 2013), particular wetland types need to be incorporated into the protected areas system to satisfy the criterion of representativeness (Chen et al. 2025). In this context, only the Victorian biodiversity plan, ‘Protecting Victoria’s Environment – Biodiversity 2037,’ has a clear ‘net gain’ target, expressed as an ‘overall extent and condition of native habitats across terrestrial, waterway and marine environments’ that is explicitly linked to estimates of relative areas, enabling actions and strategies required to deliver the target (Vic. Department of Environment Land Water and Planning 2017, p. 20). The authors of ‘Protecting Victoria’s Environment’ acknowledge that biodiversity conservation efforts place lower priority on wetlands (Vic. Department of Environment Land Water and Planning 2017, p. 13). Assessments and prioritisation of actions that consider the representative extent of significant ecological communities, threatened species, migratory birds and climate refugia in Victoria do not consider the natural extent (rather the state-based extent) of ecological communities or how synergies of cost-effectiveness might be achieved through collaboration. Prioritisation based only on habitat condition and cost-effectiveness does not meet the criterion of representativeness in systematic conservation planning based on the CARE principles (connectivity, adequacy, representativeness and efficiency (Possingham et al. 2006), not least because effects on stakeholders of changes in supply of ecosystem services are not accounted for (Baral et al. 2014; Colloff et al. 2016).

Along with prioritising actions at landscape scale, designing and expanding existing wetland-protected area networks is equally important and achievable. Systematic conservation planning principles can identify wetlands of high ecological integrity and connectivity (Nel et al. 2011). The NSW Wetlands Policy 2010 (NSW Department of Environment Climate Change 2010) and New South Wales National Parks Establishment Plan 2008 (NSW Department of Environment Climate Change 2008) include protection of representative wetlands in reserves. However, the target indicator for status of protected areas in the NSW State of the Environment Report 2021 is only the ‘area of the terrestrial reserve system’, whereas the extent and condition of wetlands are reportedly ‘getting worse’ (NSW Environment Protection Authority 2021). Hence, despite comprehensive policy frameworks, the under-representation and degradation of wetlands indicate that the operational frameworks for these policies are ineffective, including poor consultation with Indigenous stakeholders (Table 3).

State-specific targets that do not reference national and international targets and which can be changed during the life of a state-based strategy have contributed to numerous varied and incoherent policies. This is particularly true in Victoria and New South Wales, where moderate comprehensiveness is exhibited, contributing significantly to the 15/43 outcomes (Table 4). This ad hoc formulation of conservation policy at the state level is indicative of the ineffective translation of national and international conservation goals into regional targets and actions (Dovers 2003). Reviewing pathways (Fig. 2–4) to enable policy integration across scales could improve consistency and co-operation and make high-level, aspirational Commonwealth objectives into pragmatic state-level targets with explicit implementation strategies partnerships. For example, under Australia’s ‘Strategy for Nature 2019–2030’, Objective 5 is to ‘improve conservation management of Australia’s landscapes, waterways, wetlands and seascapes through enhancing the representativeness, extent, connectivity and condition of government- and non-government-managed protected areas of conservation reserves, Indigenous protected areas and marine protected areas’ (Biodiversity Working Group 2019, p. 23). This high-level objective conflates different policies on protected areas, restoration and stewardship and wetlands are considered part of the terrestrial reserve system. The last progress measure for Objective 5 reads like an afterthought, as follows: ‘retention, protection and/or restoration of wetland ecosystems to maintain or improve ecological integrity and ecosystem function’. This gives the impression that restoration is optional if retention is achieved because many wetlands in the Basin are in poor ecological condition (Davies et al. 2010). A major improvement would be coordination of conservation actions at the catchment scale and integrating them with Commonwealth and state water legislation and climate adaptation policies (Fig. 2–4). Additional policy direction to this effect would go some way by strengthening integration in the national Strategy for Nature 2019–2030.

Nearly half (21/43) of the mechanisms were assessed as ‘fair’ for climate adaptation (Table 4), with a similar contribution from all jurisdictions, except South Australia. Victoria has explicit targets and has committed to adopting a transformative approach to building climate resilience, but climate adaptation is mentioned as a subsidiary next step in the planning process (Vic. Department of Environment Land Water and Planning 2021, p. 11). Climate adaptation action plans in Victoria and South Australia are underpinned by state legislation, with targets for emission reduction and a clean economy as priority areas. Recognition of climate change threats but without action to address them can be attributed to governance arrangements in the Basin states being strongly path-dependent and, hence, maladaptive under climate change (Marshall and Alexandra 2016). Climate adaptation relevant to wetlands must be incorporated into conservation planning (Colloff et al. 2016; Schweizer et al. 2022). Hence, overarching strategies for biodiversity and integrated water conservation action plans and water resources management under Victorian legislation require integrating climate adaptation (Table 3). This requirement highlights the need for policy mechanisms that are clear, consistent and aligned with international obligations (Bender et al. 2023).

There is considerable scope to improve participation of Indigenous groups and communities, particularly in Victoria and New South Wales. Action plans under Victorian legislation lack Indigenous coordination (Table 3). Frameworks for managing threats to ecological communities and restoring wetlands in New South Wales could be strengthened by consulting with Indigenous groups (Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations versus the Commonwealth 2023). The increase in stakeholder voices adds complexity to decision-making, but conservation decisions should be complemented with Indigenous and traditional knowledge systems and their interactions with values and rules (Gorddard et al. 2016) in setting more ambitious conservation targets (Pittock and Finlayson 2011). Such target setting promotes integrated, adaptive management (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2011).

Australian governments provide resources to implement conservation plans through grants programs, environmental trusts and public–private partnerships. The number and type of projects that receive funding from such sources vary across jurisdictions. For example, the Conservation Management Program in New South Wales funds area conservation through the Biodiversity Conservation Investment Strategy and the New South Wales Biodiversity Trust, a statutory not-for-profit body established under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (NSW) (NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust 2023). This investment strategy complements the government’s priorities and commitments, such as the national parks system and the Saving our Species program. In South Australia, the Landscape Priorities Fund, established by the Landscape South Australia Act 2019 (SA), allows regional landscape boards to collaborate with other groups and support investment in large-scale environmental projects that address regional and cross-regional priorities.

To address these challenges of limited resources (including water) for wetland conservation, adopting conservation triage processes with standardised, transparent and repeatable decision-making criteria (Dallimer and Stringer 2018) could help effective resource allocations to wetlands of high conservation value and with a high chance of persistence or high conservation value (Schweizer et al. 2022).

The administrative and institutional weaknesses identified in our assessment help explain implementation failures observed in other studies. For example, Wheeler (2024) linked the variable success of water recovery programs to factors such as administrative complexity and a lack of political will. This finding highlights the crucial link between design effectiveness and implementation effectiveness. A policy instrument with a poor administrative design, as identified by our indicators, is inherently less likely to be successful when implemented. Administrative inconsistencies, including responsibilities for implementation and compliance, have led to a fragmented approach to wetland conservation at the national scale and within the jurisdictions we studied. Such fragmentation constrains the effectiveness of wetland conservation efforts.

The administration of Victorian legislative action plans and New South Wales’s threatened species conservation programs needs to be strengthened to enhance their operational effectiveness. Their current status shows gaps in implementation, underscoring the need for a more robust approach. At the Commonwealth level, frameworks for biodiversity conservation and reserve protection should be implemented in a more effective and meaningful way. Currently, no state has a specific 5-year implementation plan as required under the Strategy for National Reserve System. Instead, various state mechanisms are in place to complement the respective goals. Moreover, the flexibility for states to report against Australia’s Strategy for Nature’s targets (Biodiversity Working Group 2019, p. 39) limits effective progress tracking at the national scale, which in turn affects spatial planning for climate resilience (Eckert et al. 2023). Therefore, by establishing clear and unambiguous reporting mechanisms, the Commonwealth can provide an opportunity for states to align their efforts more effectively with national goals. This alignment will promote consistency, cooperation and shared learning from international experiences.

Despite these shortcomings, most policy mechanisms have well-defined roles, responsibilities and review dates established. Yet, robust conservation planning remains constrained by limitations on resources. This requires transdisciplinary research and practice based on the co-production of knowledge by key stakeholders and rights holders (Davies et al. 2014; West et al. 2019). Such a scheme needs an operational governance framework and sustainable financial backing (Jiménez and Basurto 2022).

Biodiversity loss demands comprehensive political action (Rouillard et al. 2018). Victoria and South Australia have established systems for legislative review and incorporating new knowledge. However, the effectiveness of laws such as those underpinning the Basin Plan, rely heavily on robust implementation and clarity of objectives. For example, the Murray–Darling Basin Royal Commission report (Walker 2019) stated that the widespread interpretation of the Water Act 2007 (Cth) as giving equal weight to environmental, social and economic outcomes was unlawful. It is not possible in practice to optimise these without major trade-offs between them.