The initial National Environmental Standards released today do not deliver the strong nature protection the Albanese government promised with its reform of the national nature law, the Australian Conservation Foundation said.
“These disappointing standards do not set out clear and specific rules to strengthen nature protection,” said ACF’s national biodiversity policy adviser Brendan Sydes.
“The standards retain too much of the discretion and ambiguity that has been a central problem of Australia’s nature law – the problem these standards were supposed to fix.
“ACF’s analysis shows thousands of hectares of threatened species habitat is approved for destruction every year. These standards provide no confidence this is about to change.
“The devastating impacts of bird flu highlight the need for increased efforts to improve the resilience of our threatened wildlife, already hit hard by habitat loss and other threats.
“Weak standards are a licence to continue habitat destruction.
“Rather than seize this opportunity for stronger nature protection, Environment Minister Murray Watt has stuck close to the status quo, preserving wriggle room to allow for decisions that would see threatened species become more endangered.
“This is not the big shift you would expect from a government that was committed to tackling Australia’s extinction crisis and the longstanding failures of the nature law.
“Biodiversity offsets or accreditation of state and territory governments might please business, but these changes do not help nature.
“It’s up to Minister Watt and the Albanese government to now demonstrate how they will make sure the nature law reforms deliver stronger environmental protection and better outcomes for nature, as promised.”
National Environmental Standards are the centrepiece of the reform of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. They form part of a new set of benchmarks to assess commercial proposals and the accreditation of state and territory laws.
Along with other reforms, the standards set new outcomes and objectives for the things the Act is supposed to protect, including threatened species, internationally recognised wetlands and World Heritage sites like the Great Barrier Reef.
Swift parrots pic by Brendan Sydes