Government says it has no information on extent of clearing under new, less-restrictive laws

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Prosecutions in New South Wales for illegal land clearing have dropped by 80% in the past three years, according to data released under freedom of information laws.

The information, obtained by the NSW Labor opposition, shows the Berejiklian government claims not to have any information about how much clearing has occurred under new laws that came into force in August 2017 aimed at making land clearing easier.

And despite the NSW government having information about earlier clearing from the 2015-16 period, it has refused to release it until April 2018 “or when [the] final version of the document is submitted for approval”.

The NSW Coalition government scrapped three pieces of legislation aimed at protecting native vegetation and wildlife in NSW (the Native Vegetation Act, the Threatened Species Conservation Act and the Nature Conservation Trust Act), and replaced them with a single piece of legislation, the Biodiversity Conservation Act.

The move was welcomed by farming lobby groups, who wanted fewer controls on land clearing, but was lambasted by scientists and conservation groups, with warnings that broadscale clearing rates could double as a result.

The legislation followed laws introduced in Queensland, which created “self-assessable codes”, allowing landholders to decide whether or not clearing required approval. Law changes in Queensland in 2012 caused land clearing there to skyrocket, and it now amounts to almost 400,000 hectares a year.

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The newly released documents show that in the four months after those laws came into force in NSW, not a single prosecution for illegal land clearing had begun.

In the first seven months of 2017, before the new laws took effect, one prosecution was started. There were two prosecutions started in 2016-17, another two the previous year.

That is a sharp drop on 2014-15, when 10 prosecutions began.

“Every warning about the impact of these land-clearing laws is coming to pass right under the noses of a government which is wilfully allowing this environmental vandalism to continue,” said Penny Sharpe, the NSW Labor spokeswoman for environment and heritage.

“As the chainsaws and bulldozers roar across NSW, failure to prosecute shows that those illegally clearing know they have nothing to fear.

“Like water theft, the NSW government is failing our environment, choosing to back the thieves and illegal clearers over farmers and other landholders doing the right thing,” Sharpe said.

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The Nature Conservation Council CEO, Kate Smolski, called for the urgent release of data on land-clearing rates in NSW.

“February 25 marks six months since those laws took effect, but the public still remains in the dark about the harm that they are causing,” Smolski said.

“Lax land-clearing laws are a matter of life and death for wildlife. They degrade our soils and water supplies and are driving species to extinction, yet in NSW the public has no idea how many native animals are dying.”

“The government has the technology to report on habitat destruction within days but refuses to do so, presumably because it knows the public would be horrified and demand that strong protections be restored.”

A spokewoman for the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage said land-clearing rates were “constantly monitored to ensure that environmental safeguards are not exceeded”.

She also said reports of illegal land clearing had not changed significantly despite the drop in prosecutions. “Calls to Environment Line regarding alleged unlawful clearing have remained relatively consistent for the three-month period prior and post the commencement of the new Biodiversity Conservation Act,” she said.

“OEH investigates all reports of alleged unlawful land clearing … OEH encourages people with specific information about alleged unlawful clearing to report the details to Environment Line on 131 555.

“The government has provided additional funding for compliance activities – including 15 new compliance and regulation staff over the next four years.”



The NSW minister for environment and heritage, Gabrielle Upton, has been contacted for comment.