Western Sydney biodiversity certification deeply flawed

Saturday, 15 December 2007 00:29

TEC urban campaigner Mr Leigh Martin said "The process approved by the NSW government will result in the loss of 1,867ha of high and medium conservation value native vegetation. This is a major impact on an already severely depleted resource in Western Sydney”.

Biodiversity certification will also remove a crucial layer of environmental protection, the assessment of threatened species impacts. Instead assumptions will be made on the basis of general vegetation types and old, incomplete information. No ground truthing will be done to check the validity of these assumptions.

“Basing assessment of threatened species impacts on incomplete information and assumptions posses the serious risk of populations of threatened species being overlooked and lost forever to development,” Mr Martin said.

Another critical flaw is the treatment of remnant native vegetation parcels of less than 4ha. Under the biodiversity certification process many of these parcels will be lost to development despite the fact that they can act as important refuges for threatened species and also play an important role for migratory species.

“Development of the growth centres should include careful assessment of parcels of remnant bushland to identify those acting as crucial wildlife refuges. This level of assessment appears lacking in the biodiversity process,” Mr Martin said.

There is also serious concern that proposed vegetation “offsets” will not be sufficient to compensate for the loss of habitat or be available at the same time that bushland is lost to development

“Purchasing land for offsets on the open market raises the serious concern that purchase cost will override conservation value in the selection of offset lands. There is also likely to be serious time lag between the loss of vegetation to development and the purchase of offset areas,” Mr Martin said