DRAFT native vegetation laws have only been public for a matter of hours but the schism between farmers and conservation groups has undoubtedly intensified.
Despite universal concerns around satellite mapping protocols, early reactions to the Coalition’s proposed laws can be sorted into clear ‘for’ or ‘against’ camps, with producers and green groups resuming familiar positions at either end of the spectrum.
Environmental groups were expectedly up in arms at the proposed laws, claiming they will herald the return of broadscale land clearing, and would fuel an “extinction emergency”.
“They will be cheering in the boardrooms of big agribusiness and property developers today because the Baird government has done their bidding by agreeing to sweep away the Native Vegetation Act and introduce much weaker nature conservation laws,” NSW Nature Conservation chief executive Kate Smolski said.
“If it passes parliament in its current form and becomes law, there will be more extinctions, more farms destroyed by soil erosion and salinity, and more greenhouse gas pollution fueling runaway climate change.”
Key Nature Conservation concerns include land clearing relying too heavily on self-regulation, a lack of ‘red flag’ areas to protect the most important wildlife, while it believes the $240 million conservation incentive package is well short of what is needed.
But NSW Farmers hit back at “narrow-minded” opponents and declared the old native vegetation act must go.
“There are groups that want to see even more restrictive new laws,” Mr Schoen said. “Interestingly these people are not the ones bearing the costs of this flawed legislation, or dealing with the environmental damage it causes.”
“The current Act over-regulates, micro-manages... and in many cases... work against our wildlife, allowing uncontrolled regrowth to harbour disease carrying feral predators such as wild cats, pigs and foxes.”
You can view the draft legislation here.