Surprise! Wildlife & Wildland Offsets In New South Wales Failing To Slow Wildlife Declines
Environmental offset policies are failing to halt the decline of wildlife and certain habitats should now be off limits to development, a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry has heard. MPs have also been told the NSW government needs to reform a scheme that allows for the financial trade of environmental offset credits on private land so that there are clear rules for managing conflicts of interest and the potential for insider trading, after revelations in a Guardian Australia investigation.
The inquiry into the integrity of the state’s environmental offsetting regime comes after Guardian Australia reported on serious failures in a system that is supposed to compensate for the environmental destruction that occurs as a result of development. This has included promised offsets that were never delivered, so-called double-dipping where sites with existing protections have been used as an environmental offset, and coalmining companies counting future mine rehabilitation towards their offset requirements.
At a hearing on Friday, professional bodies and environment groups said offsetting should no longer be permissible for certain habitats in NSW that were now so endangered they were on the brink of extinction, including breeding habitat for the critically endangered regent honeyeater.
“At some point there will be no available offset and I think that is one of the major problems of the scheme – that there is no threshold where you say, ‘OK, with this critically endangered community we’re no longer using offsets, we’re going to avoid [further damage]’,” said Andrew Lothian, the treasurer of the Ecological Consultants Association of NSW.
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/22/nsw-environmental-offsets-failing-to-halt-wildlife-decline-inquiry-told
