Latest Update: February 2008

 

The Biobanking methodology, Regulatory Impact Statement, report from the secret trial, and scientific peer review of the methodology can be downloaded from the DECC website.

The details of the scheme are even worse than expected, and there is still more pressure from development interests to weaken it even further.

Please take the time to make a quick submission. We encourage everybody to have a say, because the scheme will fundamentally change threatened species protections in urban areas and have far-reaching implications for biodiversity.

There is no provision for public participation in the Biobanking Scheme, and since scrutiny by the community has played such an important role in threatened species protection in the NSW to date, this exclusion stands to have profound implications.

Key concerns

• The scheme will institutionalise the net loss of native vegetation. There are no mechanisms in place to prevent urban landclearing, and in that context this offsetting scheme will actually facilitate development.
• The scheme allows offsets to be used even for the highest conservation value areas – it gives discretion to the Minister to vary ‘red flags’ and thus allow offsets for endangered communities and other irreplaceable areas.
• The scheme completely ignores climate change impacts – it will allow developments to be approved in climate change corridors and refugia, and it will increase the vulnerability of species at risk from climate change.
• The scheme allows developers to directly ‘buy’ an approval (biobanking statement) – money can be paid as an ‘environmental contribution’ to acquire an approval instead of offsetting. This arrangement lacks accountability and restraint and amounts to institutionalized corruption.
• The scheme does not include any regulatory constraints on the uses that may apply to offset sites – there is no security that clearing and logging will not occur on biobank sites (offsets) some time in the future.
• The scheme severely flouts the precautionary principle – it does not require fauna surveys prior to granting development approval, and will mean that lack of knowledge will result in destruction of threatened species habitats. The scheme provides flexibility to approve developments, but no flexibility to increase environmental protections.
• Mining companies only have to purchase offset credits temporarily, and can later sell them on again once they have claimed to have ‘rehabilitated’ mine sites.
• Many areas that are already protected through various forms of covenant will be able to be used as offsets by developers without additional measures being required to protect their values – so development approvals will be granted without any extra conservation action resulting.

All of the documents are available at the DECC website: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatspec/publicconsult.htm

These include:

• The Biobanking Assessment Methodology
• A Regulatory Impact Statement
• A Compliance Strategy
• The Biobanking Regulation
• A Peer Review Paper in response to the Methodology
• A Report from the Biobanking Pilot program run last year.

For more information, contact Georgina Woods on 0249261641

HCEC's submission is now available online: click here for details.

 

See other pages on this site about biobanking:

Introduction to Biobanking

Media Release: "Pay to Kill" scheme revealed

Ditch the Biobanking Bill

Media Release: Mining to be permitted on biobank sites

<!--break-->

Environment Minister, Bob Debus sent a letter to parliamentarians stating that the Government would not support most of the amendments that will be put up by the Greens, but that:

BioBanking is now supported by the NSW Minerals Council and key urban development industry representatives (including Urban Development Industry Association, NSW Urban Taskforce and the Property Council of Australia). I am seeking to ensure that the important issue raised by the NSW Farmers’ Association is properly addressed by the Parliamentary Joint Committee.

The State Government has finally come out of the closet and admitted that it is no longer interested in biodiversity protection....

Update: October, 2006.

The Biobanking Bill has been amended and is being debated in parliament. We consider that the current round of amendments amount to an appalling list of concessions to both the mining and development industries -- both of whom already currently do whatever they please with regard to threatened species.

The Opposition is proposing amendments that could allow farmers too, to buy biodiversity credits to offset landclearing activities on rural land, and the Minister for the Environment replied: "I have advised the New South Wales Farmers Association that the Government would be prepared to consider the possibility of using biodiversity credits to offset amber light clearing of native vegetation under the Native Vegetation Act." This could foreshadow a dramatic wind back in recent landclearing legislation.

The Bill is expected to sashay through the Lower House this week.

HCEC is disgusted by the lack of care this Government demonstrates for biodiversity. See the attached flier print it out hand out copies on the street -- or wherever. Watch this space for more details about how the mining and development industries -- in partnership with this State Government -- are taking biodiversity to the brink.

Older news about biobanking...

The biodiversity Banking Bill has been introduced into NSW parliament, with the promise that we will have the Winter recess to read and respond to its content. Already there are some worrying developments, such as the intimiation, in the 2nd reading speech, that through this Bill "Conservation effort is shifted from small pockets of expensive land which is more suited to development onto lower priced land, where the pressure of weeds, pests species and degradation is lower" -- If land value forms any part of the biobanking equation, it will not deliver on its promises. Further, the explanatory notes provided by DEC (see attached file below) contain ominous allusions to development that is "required for an essential public purpose or a purpose of special significance to the State" prompting the lifting of a biobvanking covenant. Any development that biobanks will not have to undergo assessment under the EP&A Act, so the stakes are high for anyone who wants to bypass environmental protection... including government agencies, coal mining companies and notorious land speculators who have gambled on buying and developing high conservation value properties. The Biobanking working groups are heavily populated by property industry consultants, and that influence is starting to show through. HCEC will be developing a detailed response to the Bill, so watch this space.

Attachment	Size
the ugly truth	101.25 KB
The new Amendment Bill	238.53 KB