The Biodiversity Council welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on South Australia’s Draft Biodiversity Bill (‘the Bill’).

South Australia’s biodiversity is in steep decline and we see no sign that the decline is being reversed. The abundance of threatened species has declined about five-fold in the past 50 years.1 The 2020 Threatened Bird Index shows that between 1985 and 2020, South Australia’s Threatened birds declined by over 90% on average, the worst of any Australian State or Territory.2

This draft Bill puts forward the South Australian government’s plan for how to best care for biodiversity within the state. The bill was developed as a response to declining biodiversity in South Australia, and increasing threatening processes. By designing this bill to consolidate the Native Vegetation Act 1991 and National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972, South Australia is on its way to safeguarding the longevity and health of the state’s biodiversity.

The creation of such a bill is a critical step in the conservation and restoration of biodiversity, especially on a statewide, cohesive scale. The Bill demonstrates that South Australia is leading the Country in protecting cultural environmental values and supporting First Nations self-determination.

As currently drafted, we are very supportive of the Bill, in particular:

• The introduction of a new general duty requiring anyone undertaking an activity to take reasonable and practicable measures to avoid non-trivial harm to biodiversity.
• The increase in penalties for illegal land clearing. Too often the cost of illegal land-clearing fines are so small they can be factored into business operations so they do not act as a deterrent.
• Enabling third parties to take civil action in the Environment, Resources and Development Court against individuals who, and businesses that, breach the Act.
• The creation of a ‘First Nations Expert Biodiversity Committee’ (FNEBC) to support First Nations peoples to provide advice about the way the environment is managed.
• This listing of Culturally Significant Biodiversity Entity in the legislation.
• The independence of the new Scientific Committee.
• The definition of ‘native plant’ to include any plant indigenous to Australia, rather than a plant indigenous to South Australia, noting that there are a small number of native plant species that have become over-abundant (e.g. Coastal wattle Acacia longifolia).

The Biodiversity Council has identified opportunities to improve parts of the Bill. These are:

• primacy of the new Act
• strengthening critical habitat provisions
• establishing a levy for the Biodiversity Conservation Fund
• implementation considerations
• specific amendments to provisions to ensure better outcomes for First Nations including cultural heritage, healthy Country and self-determination (see Table 1).

See our submission for more details.