February 4, 2016
Communities demand Baird end NSW’s war on trees
Hundreds of people at community meetings in Crows Nest and North Narrabeen this week unanimously supported a motion opposing the Baird Government’s plans to ease tree-clearing controls across the state.
“People are outraged that Premier Mike Baird is allowing the Nationals in the Coalition to dictate environment policy to the whole of the state,” said meeting organiser Corinne Fisher.
“Our communities do not want the laws that have defended bushland and wildlife for more than a decade to be scrapped.”
A motion calling on the Baird government to halt species extinction, biodiversity loss and vegetation destruction in city and country areas was unanimously supported at both meetings (see below).
“Clearly the new law is all about facilitating development rather than protecting biodiversity and acting to mitigate damaging climate change impacts,” Ms Fisher said.
“People are fed up with losing precious bushland. They are looking to Mike Baird to show some leadership on this issue by standing up to the radicals in his government who are driving these damaging changes.”
Ms Fisher pointed out that Sydney had been rocked by the loss of trees due to the unpopular 10-50 code in 2015, then the heritage trees in Randwick sacrificed supposedly for light tail, and now the new Biodiversity Conservation Act.
The government plans to abolish the Native Vegetation Act and the Threatened Species Conservation Act and replace it with a new Biodiversity Conservation Act that will:
- put landmark trees and bushland in towns and suburbs at risk
- renew broadscale land clearing across the state
- add extinction pressures to the state's 1000 threatened species
- threaten clean, reliable water supplies
- degrade fertile farmland through erosion and salinity; and
- undermine Australia's ability to meet its carbon pollution reduction targets
“This is a plot to let landholders trash our precious rural woodlands and urban bushland by replacing the Native Vegetation Act with weaker tree-clearing controls,” Ms Fisher said.
“Thousands of koalas, quolls and gliders will be killed each year if Mike Baird’s Liberal-National government scraps our tree-clearing laws.
“The Baird government is on notice. These meetings are just the start of a grassroots campaign that is spreading fast across Sydney and the rest of the state.”
Motion
This meeting calls upon the Baird Government to act as a matter of urgency, in order to halt species extinction in NSW; stop further loss of biodiversity; and protect vegetation for the present and future wellbeing of NSW communities, city and country.
Accordingly, this meeting calls upon the Baird Government to:
- Ensure that the new Biodiversity Conservation Act does not lead to broadscale clearing (as defined in the Native Vegetation Act) or any further clearing of bushland.
- Ensure that the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Policy:
- prescribes a like-for-like requirement for any offsets;
- provides clear protection for environmentally sensitive areas; and
- does not allow supplementary measures such as cash payments.
- Recognise and comply with federal policies to protect biodiversity and combat climate change.
Tags
Forests and wildlife
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