Fig 1 People outside Senator’s McCarthy’s office on 14 Nov.
ECNT organised this event to allow the community to voice their concerns on Labor’s nature law reforms.
Over 130 grass roots community groups (FLP is one) have denounced these reforms as a backward step. Some of FLP’s concerns with the reforms for threatened species include:
Pay to destroy critical habitat – this involves finding an offset or paying money to the federal government.
This scheme has been used before in NSW. The result was that the federal government made a lot of money. However, the money could not be spent because equivalent habitats could not be found.
If the reform is used at Lee Point? DHA is owned by the taxpayer. Taxpayer funds get transferred from one government dept to another and critical habitat is destroyed.
Mitigation hierarchy (avoidance first – offset last). Its good to see the mitigation heirarchy going from policy to legislation. However, the minister must only “consider” the “mitigation hierarchy” without being obliged to follow it.
If the reform is used at Lee Point? Avoiding clearing critical habitat by using available alternative sites is sound advice, however, the environment minister is not obliged to follow it under these reforms.
DHA have already cleared critical habitat used by the endangered Black-footed Tree-rat (BFTR) without considering reasonable avoidance measures.
Scorecard – Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) ran this scorecard on the new nature laws.