Blue Mountains Bushcare Network c/- 81 Prince Edward Street Blackheath NSW th June 2016

Transcription

1 Blue Mountains Bushcare Network c/- 81 Prince Edward Street Blackheath NSW th June 2016 Biodiversity Reforms - Have your say Office of Environment and Heritage PO Box A290 Sydney South NSW 1232 Submission: Opposing NSW Draft Biodiversity Reform Legislation Dear Minister Blue Mountains Bushcare Network (BMBN) is a community-based umbrella organisation representing over 60 Volunteer Bushcare Groups, with 500 members, in the City of the Blue Mountains. Our members include volunteers working under Blue Mountains City Council management and by affiliation, volunteers working in National Parks under NPWS management. Our prime concern is the urban interface between developed ridgetop areas and the Crown Lands, Council Lands and National Parks. Tenure-neutral consideration of riparian & swamp lands, which include Landcare agreements with private landholders is also of prime importance. We have a particular concern for native vegetation in Megalong Valley, which is part of the Blue Mountains LGA, where much of the rural land is under private control. In addition, BMBN consults, liaises and shares information, skills and resources with Bushcare/Landcare organisations within the Greater Sydney Local Land Services and further afield throughout New South Wales. Our concerns are not limited to Bushcare sites, as over time we have realised that interconnectedness is the key to successful rehabilitation and tenure-neutral catchment-based (or landscape-type based) management is the most efficient method. We strongly oppose both the Draft Biodiversity Conservation Bill 2016 and the draft Local Land Services Amendment Bill 2016 in their current forms. Our objections are detailed as suggested under your various subject headings on the pages following, although we believe the whole approach is inherently flawed and should be abondonded. Page 1 of 6

2 Draft Biodiversity Conservation Bill Objectives: Objective 1: to conserve biodiversity and ecological integrity at bioregional and State scales We consider this objective to be far too broad in scale and limiting on local issues. Objective 2: to facilitate ecological (sic) sustainable development, but with social considerations to be effectively integrated "Social considerations" must be clearly defined or the Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) envisaged will not eventuate. Objective 3: To improve and share knowledge... An intention to recover (as well as maintain) threatened species and ecological communities is a notable omission; and an apparently deliberate lack of a maintain or improve biodiversity standard to underpin the legislation is significant. Biodiversity Assessment Method (BAM) and offsetting: The proposed biodiversity conservation strategy depends very heavily on a biodiversity assessment methodology (BAM), to be used state-wide, which employs offsetting as the main method for managing, or compensating for biodiversity lost through clearing. The BAM lacks clear basic objectives to protect biodiversity or achieve net positive outcomes. Like-for-like offsets should be mandatory where possible; otherwise offsets need to be found that are closest matches to this in structure/species composition limits need to be defined and adhered to. Beyond a certain point, offsetting becomes inappropriate and developments need to be refused or modified. Biodiversity Certification BMBN considers biodiversity certification as proposed to be a very risky scheme for biodiversity. It relies greatly on the offsetting scheme, with a high potential for inaccurate or biased evaluation of biodiversity resources and acceptance of inadequate or irrelevant offset actions. Certification of the Northwest and Southwest Growth Centres in western Sydney are recent examples of poor certification practice. Biodiversity Conservation Investment Strategy The proposed map of areas where biodiversity is protected needs to be very accurate and of usefully large scale, delineating various types of public and private reserves etc.; and must be publicly available. Priority investment areas for conservation are also supposed to be identified, considering (hopefully carefully) important factors like comprehensiveness, adequacy and representativeness (C.A.R), and ensuring that good samples of the least protected ecosystems are included in the criteria for prioritisation. Page 2 of 6

3 Biodiversity Conservation Program for threatened species and ecological communities (EC's) A program to (a) to maximise the long-term security of threatened species and threatened ecological communities in nature, and (b) to minimise the impacts of key threatening processes on biodiversity values, with strategies to achieve the objectives. This is vital work, and should be core business; however, it MUST move beyond compiling strategies to actual implementation on the ground, or it will not achieve anything. A requirement to do actual work needs to be added, with an indication of significant resourcing with personnel and money. Private Land Conservation A Conservation Agreement (as established under the National Parks and Wildlife Service Act 1974) is currently the highest level of biodiversity and other land protection that a private property owner can have applied to their land in perpetuity. This will be irrevocably changed by the directives of the proposed Bill: Conservation Agreements are to be restricted to areas of significant biodiversity. This reduces the range of property types that can be assessed for such an agreement. In the current National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, Conservation Agreements could provide for protection of areas of significant scenery, karst environments, and of Aboriginal places and objects. These criteria no longer qualify for private land protection. Could this be because they have no marketable investment value that can be (legally) traded? A Conservation Agreement will no longer provide biodiversity protection from mining and petroleum exploration and extraction. In Section 5.23 (7) it is stated that the Minister for the Environment may direct the Biodiversity Conservation Trust to terminate a conservation agreement if a mining or petroleum authority is granted in respect of the land and the Minister for the Environment is of the opinion that the activity authorised by the mining or petroleum authority will adversely affect: any management actions that may be carried out on the land under the agreement; or will adversely affect the biodiversity values protected by the agreement. This is outrageous. The decision of the Minister of the Environment (obviously in name not in function) should be to prohibit any mining or petroleum exploration/drilling activities that will detract from the conservation values (of biodiversity, landforms and water bodies) or management actions on the covenanted land, NOT TO CANCEL THE CONSERVATION AGREEMENT Monitoring and reporting The Independent Advisory Panel's report said that its recommendations (supposedly all accepted by the Government) hinged crucially on there being high quality data, Page 3 of 6

4 monitoring and reporting under a new legislation regime. However, the draft legislation does not set clear requirements for these essential elements, which would make it difficult to accurately determine the scale of biodiversity losses over time, and when extra species become threatened. Conclusions This draft Bill fails to follow some of the principles of true Ecologically Sustainable Development, even though ESD is stated as one of its chief objectives. The proposed BAM biobanking regime does not apply the precautionary principle of avoiding serious or irreversible damage to biodiversity; and it does not ensure inter-generational equity, since it can allow irreversible impacts and possible extinctions. The major shortcomings of the Biodiversity Assessment Methodology (BAM) make the system as proposed totally unacceptable. There are too many features blatantly favouring development proponents, notably: variations from like-for-like offsetting including some dubious supplementary measures, too many ways of circumventing red flags, and acceptance of promised revegetation from scratch as valid offsets for the loss of ecological communities that may be hundreds of years old. For Endangered and Critically Endangered entities (ecological communities and species), offsetting should be regarded as inappropriate, and destructive development needs to be prevented in nearly all cases, since further erosion of these entities is very risky. Collapse and extinction are likely under the proposed BAM regimes. Some proposals in the draft Bill are positive, but their practical effectiveness in conserving natural biodiversity will depend on how well they are implemented, which is an unknown quantity. Strategies related to identifying important biodiversity core areas, corridors, areas of under-protected EECs needed for a C.A.R reserve system, etc. are most important and welcome, BUT need urgent action based on them to achieve proper protection of these areas on the ground. All the while, options will be diminishing if the new LLS Amendment bill takes effect and encourages even more habitat destruction. Encouragement of private land conservation areas is also very important, but these too need legislated security from destruction (including by mining), and long-term resourcing. Page 4 of 6

5 Local Land Services Bill Blue Mountains Bushcare Network believes the proposed bill would not deliver for the environment. We think it would undoubtedly lead to much-increased clearing activity, causing the destruction of endangered species and communities. There would likely be an accelerated movement of species into threatened categories and a much increased risk of extinctions. This would be totally unacceptable. Therefore, the draft bill in its present form needs to be withdrawn. It is surely possible to promote economic development in agricultural areas while also protecting viable samples of the natural ecological communities and maintaining species that still exist there. The Independent Review Panel thought so. If the NSW Government's primary solution to this were to allow large-scale clearing to became legal again, it would clearly breach the claim that the reforms would facilitate ecologically sustainable development and conserve biodiversity across NSW. Worse still, in choosing to allow clearing that could cause extinctions, the Government would be failing in an important duty of care, ignoring the fact that it should be safeguarding the natural heritage of NSW and aiming to pass it on unimpaired to future generations. Without more knowledge of all the factors involved, BMBN can only recommend that this legislation be thoroughly re-thought, to be based on firm intentions and action to maintain or improve biodiversity. Whether this should involve amendment of the NV Act or totally new legislation, we cannot say. Some use of codes may be appropriate; if so, the allowable provisions under most of them would need to be much more conservative than currently proposed. In complex situations like this it is not possible to please all interests all of the time, especially when one of the interests (natural biodiversity) can't speak for itself. However, in the present case biodiversity has been losing out to human economic development for years. If it is not to be lost almost entirely, we believe the remnant needs to be respected and given some room to survive. If this means keeping some habitat and wildlife on better-class land and forgoing a relatively small amount of money, we think it is justified. Whatever system is used, the administration of it must be well resourced and consistently applied by Government over many years. Otherwise it would lose respect from its customers (landholders) and fail to work in their interests and those of biodiversity. Page 5 of 6

6 BMBN believes the government has misread the public pulse on this issue and have failed to properly consider submissions made to the 2014 Review. We commend a submission lodged by Blue Mountains City Council on this issue and strongly support the comments of Council listed in their submission. Representatives from BMBN have attended information sessions of various types including some LLS and Farmers NSW presentations. While accepting the integrity of the presenting individuals and their good intentions, if both the legislation and compliance structure are weak, the outcomes will be poor for birds, the environment and biodiversity. Further, the material is so complex and related to other documentation, legislation and regulation that is not yet available for public review that BMBN considers proceeding with this process in the present expected timeframe is inadvisable. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this process. Sincerely Paul Vale Convenor Page 6 of 6