17 August 2016
Plans to repeal Tree Preservation Orders alarms WSROC
The Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (WSROC) has issued a damning assessment of the Baird government’s proposed new biodiversity and tree-clearing laws, which will see the repeal of local council Tree Preservation Orders and a likely increase in local extinctions.
The government proposes scrapping TPOs and the Threatened Species Conservation Act when it introduces its new Bioidiversity Conservation Bill to parliament in October.
WSROC has warned in its submission to the government that the reforms would be bad for wildlife and communities across Sydney’s west, and has recommended significant changes to the proposed legislation. Key concerns raised in the WSROC submission include:
- “WSROC is extremely concerned by the proposed package of biodiversity legislation reforms as it removes many of NSW’s long-held environmental protections.”
- “Overall WSROC is of the opinion that the current proposed reforms represent a serious retrograde step for environmental law and policy in New South Wales.”
- “The increasing level of population density projected in the next few decades will place additional pressures on the existing bushland pockets. These pockets contain many migratory, threatened and rare species. Removal of any of the existing bushland in urban areas will increase pressure on the remaining bushland and decrease the liveability of our environment. The biodiversity within the urban environment needs to be protected, not offset. Loss of Western Sydney’s natural bushland assets will have broader implications such as an increase in the region’s already prevalent urban heat island effect.”
- “The offset scheme offers great risk to preserving vegetation in urban areas.”
See WSROC’s full submission here http://www.nature.org.au/media/250488/wsroc_biodiversity_reform.pdf
Nature Conservation Council CEO Kate Smolski said: “Nobody supports Mike Baird’s deeply flawed package – not the scientists, not the conservationists, and not WSROC, which has a clear understanding that these laws threaten native plants and animals across Sydney’s west.
“Mr Baird should scrap this flawed package of laws and either fund Local Land Services to make the Native Vegetation Act works as it was intended, or go back to the drawing board and come up with another way to provide workable, strong protections for nature in NSW.
“From the very beginning, the government’s decision to scrap the Native Vegetation Act and Threatened Species Conservation Act was a political fix designed to appease the more extreme elements in the agricultural community.
“The laws the government has proposed will further the short-term interests of big agribusiness and property developers, not the communities and wildlife in the southern Sydney region that depend on healthy soils, waterways and bushland for their long-term survival.”
The Baird government is now reviewing more than 7000 submissions it received in response to its proposed package. It has committed to introducing legislation to parliament in October.
About WSROC
WSROC represents nine local councils in western Sydney including Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Canterbury Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Hawkesbury, Liverpool, Parramatta, and Penrith councils.
Tags
Forests and wildlife
Let others know about this issue