It was the Baird Coalition Government which created the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme (BOS) which was established under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016.
Under this scheme, applications for development or clearing approvals must set out how impacts on biodiversity will be avoided and minimised. The remaining residual impacts can be offset by the purchase and/or retirement of biodiversity credits or payment to the Biodiversity Conservation Fund.
Landholders can enter into Biodiversity Stewardship Agreements to create offset sites on their land to generate biodiversity credits. These credits are then available to the market for purchase by developers, landholders or the Biodiversity Conservation Trust to offset the impacts of development or clearing.
However it was a scheme loathed by the mining industry from the start as an impediment on its commercial interests and by the industry's supporters, such as National Party political robber baron and then Deputy Prime Minister John Barilaro. It was also a scheme heartily disliked by local government areas fighting to retain biodiversity, maintain healthy water sources and protect remaining forest.
Clarence Valley Independent, 15 December 2021:
A report tabled at the August 24 Clarence Valley Council (CVC) meeting warns that the NSW Biodiversity Offset Scheme (BOS) has had the opposite effect to its intention: instead of protecting the valley’s natural environment, it has “ensured a net loss to biodiversity, often of our most threatened flora and fauna”....
Staff advised councillors of four key issues: “a net loss of biodiversity across the LGA, a lack of stewardship sites in the Clarence (currently, there are only two stewardship sites in the Clarence), a lack of transparency in the BOS, and inconsistencies in offset prices.
“There is little confidence in this legislation for biodiversity conservation as offsets can be facilitated outside of the CVC local government area,” staff wrote.
“…credit suppliers are located all over the state, hence, if a developer can source credits, they are unlikely to be sourced within the Clarence, creating a ‘net loss’ of biodiversity.”
On the lack of transparency, staff wrote: “Many plant community types on the floodplain, which comprises a large percentage of land being developed in the Clarence, are threatened ecological communities (TEC), which are to be offset for the same TEC, forcing developers to pay into the fund as the sole way to offset credits, as there are no locally available credits.
“There is no way to determine if this money deposited in the trust is then used to facilitate recovery or protection of TECs in the Clarence – creating biodiversity loss.”....
Clarence Valley Council was not alone in expressing Northern NSW concerns as the Inquiry's submissions list confirmed.
The NSW Parliament Portfolio Committee No. 7 - Environment and Planning's Inquiry into the Integrity of the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme will not report until 1 March 2022, so the jury is still out on the Perrottet Coalition Government's response to its yet to be completed investigation.
However, one issue is being addressed.......
Environment reporter Lisa Fox (left)writing in The Guardian, 10 December 2021:
Officials working on conservation matters in the New South Wales environment department have been barred from holding financial interests in the state’s biodiversity offset scheme.
This follows an investigation of the department’s management of potential conflicts of interest.
Senior officials told a parliamentary inquiry on Friday that staff who work on the offset scheme or in the department’s biodiversity, conservation and science sections had been told they could not work in those roles and hold personal interests in properties and companies that were involved in the financial trade of offset credits.
It follows two external investigations that were commissioned by the department after Guardian Australia uncovered a series of failures in offset programs.
Offsets exist to allow developers to compensate for environmental damage in one area by delivering an equivalent environmental benefit in another.
But there have been problems with the system, including in one case a 20-year delay in delivering environmental protection and so-called “double-dipping” by developers in areas of urban sprawl.
Guardian Australia also revealed the state and federal governments bought tens of millions of dollars in offset credits from properties linked to consultants whose company advised the government on development in western Sydney.
The reporting triggered a string of reviews, including one by the legal firm Maddocks and one by the consultancy Centium examining how the environment department had managed potential conflicts of interest associated with staff holding financial interests in offset sites….
Dean Knudsen, the deputy secretary for biodiversity, conservation and science, told Friday’s hearing of the offset inquiry there had been fewer than five officials with such financial interests.
After the reviews, the department has introduced a new conflict of interest protocol that deems some investments “high risk” and presenting an “unacceptable risk to the integrity” of the scheme.
Knudsen said as a result, staff in certain sections could no longer participate in the scheme and those with historic interests had 12 months to divest.
“For departmental staff we’ve effectively said you’re not supposed to be participating in the scheme,” he said.
“If you have historically, we’ve told them what you have to do to effectively distance them from that.”
The Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann, who is chairing the inquiry, said the changes were welcome.
“This should have happened at the start of the scheme to help prevent the types of windfall gains by a few individuals with detailed knowledge of the offset industry,” she said.
“However, we also need to see a tightening of conflicts of interest [rules] within the industry itself, including within ecological consultancies.”
Officials were also asked about delays in securing permanent protection of offset sites to compensate for habitat destruction caused by coalmines in NSW.
Responses to questions on notice in the parliament from the independent MLC Justin Field state that of the 41 coalmines approved in New South Wales in the past decade, one did not require offsets, 14 had not yet triggered the requirement to deliver their offsets, nine had land set aside but permanent protections were not yet in place, and 17 had “substantially finalised” their offsets.
….but certain aspects – such as finalisation of some of the legal arrangements protecting the site – were outstanding.
Officials agreed the process for securing offsets for mines had not been “as timely as [they] should be”.
Field said it was not good enough that “not one single coalmine approved in the last decade has secured their required offsets through finalised in-perpetuity arrangements”.
“The government needs to improve the transparency around what the hold-up is, put a deadline on finalising these arrangements and hold these mine operators to that deadline,” he said.
Read the full article here.
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