Biodiversity Council welcomes deal on nature laws, warns key risks remain

The Biodiversity Council has welcomed key improvements secured by the Greens in the Federal Government’s nature law reforms today, but warned that key risks remain in the proposed legislation.

The Council welcomed moves to tackle loopholes for native forest logging and land clearing, which have been huge blind spots for our national laws, and the retention of federal oversight of the water trigger.

The Council is also pleased at the potential inclusion of a list of ‘protected matters’ that will constrain the delivery of offsets through the new restoration contributions fund, as well as limits on the use of national interest exemption powers for fossil fuel projects.

These sit alongside other positive measures already contained in the government’s legislation, such as the inclusion of an unacceptable impacts test, climate disclosures for major projects, stronger penalties for breaches of law and the establishment of an EPA.

However, significant risks remain in the legislation - including discretion on the development and application of national environmental standards, handing of approval powers to the states and territories and a new pay-to-destroy offsets fund that will now be baked into legislation and that can be used to prop up the government's Nature Repair Market.

Professor Hugh Possingham, Biodiversity Lead Councillor from the University of Queensland said:

“The old Act failed largely because it was never properly enacted.”

“An Act is a verb as well as a noun — we will only protect and restore nature if the Federal Government actually uses these laws. That requires real political will and serious investment: more staff for the department, more resources for species recovery, and proper funding for disaster response”.

“Pay-to-destroy offsetting arrangements do not work for nature. They haven’t worked effectively in the states, and are unlikely to work federally. The only proven path to stopping biodiversity loss is avoiding destruction in the first place — not paying to ‘fix it’ decades later with a low chance of success”.

Dr Jack Pascoe, Biodiversity Lead Councillor and Yuin man said:

“From what we’ve seen so far, there is still very little for First Nations people in these reforms”.

“We need clear commitments that regional plans will require genuine engagement and decision-making power for Indigenous communities, and that culturally significant ecosystems are recognised as matters of national environmental significance”.

Prof Brendan Wintle, Biodiversity Lead Councillor from The University of Melbourne said:

"There are some things to celebrate and some very big risks in the new nature laws.

"National environmental standards are a good idea, but the wording of the standards is far from finalised. The devil will be in the detail - there’s a lot of work to do.

"A list of non-offsetable (protected) matters is a positive development that will hopefully protect things that cannot be subjected to the madness of offsetting, and a quick ‘no' to projects with unacceptable impacts will be good for nature and business but the definition is vague enough that it will likely be used only when politically expedient.

"The Restoration Contribution Fund will cause more harm than good and the Holder or minister can ignore the offsets standard whenever it’s convenient.

"Overall, there are good structures established under these new laws, but far too much ministerial and executive discretion, and way too many loopholes.

"Nature-friendly government will be able to do good things, nature-unfriendly governments will be largely free to do the opposite."

James Trezise, Biodiversity Council CEO said:

"Ending the Regional Forest Agreement carve-outs finally brings native forest logging into the modern era of national environmental scrutiny. Similarly, ensuring that significant land clearing activities are regulated under national law is an important step forward - but the real test will be if the government follows through on actively protecting habitats threatened with destruction”.

"It is good to see that the mining lobby was not successful in scrapping the definition of ‘unacceptable impacts’, which will be important for setting the limits of loss under national law”.

"Despite some good progress, we are really concerned with the significant levels of discretion contained within the legislation, the lack of clarity on the development and implementation of national environmental standards as well as the relaxing of like-for-like provisions in the restoration contributions fund and the inclusion of development offsets into the Nature Repair Market".