TheDaily Examiner,
22 June 2020:
Since
last September, Clarence Valley Council has been reviewing its 2010
Biodiversity Strategy, and recently placed it on public exhibition
for comment.
As
someone who participated in the development of that original
strategy, I undertook a critical review of that document to see if
the aims and objectives, particularly relating to native vegetation,
had been achieved before making comments on the review.
Those
objectives were to: • Protect areas of native vegetation; •
Reduce the loss of native vegetation to facilitate a net gain; •
Revegetate riparian zones; • Encourage the protection and
management of regrowth in identified corridors, and; • Educate the
community on the benefits of biodiversity, and enforce legislation
aimed at protecting native flora and fauna values.
Sadly,
I concluded they had not been met, particularly the enforcing of
legislation.
There
are some relatively uncontrollable external factors that have
undoubtedly led to a net loss of vegetation, such as the massive
destruction caused by the Pacific Highway relocation.
However,
council did nothing to convince the Roads and Maritime Authority to
change the route to either of two other less-damaging options.
My
cynicism is based on reality, as evidenced by the following example.
The 2010 strategy acknowledged that “land clearing and
fragmentation was the most important contributor, to the loss of
habitat and decline of native species”, and recommended that “any
removal of native vegetation, as part of a development application
where clearing cannot be avoided, shall be offset to ensure a net
gain in vegetation”.
With
that strong statement in place, one has to ask why the largest single
housing development to be approved, Iluka’s Hickey St project, went
through with no offsets required whatsoever, resulting in the net
loss of 14 hectares of forest.Regrettably, it’s not the strategy
that has failed to halt biodiversity decline, it is the failure of
Clarence Valley Council itself, from planners through to elected
councillors, very few of whom, it would appear, have ever read the
document, and have little or no understanding of the critical need to
protect biodiversity in order for humanity to survive.
CREDIT:
John Edwards Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition
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