Fwd: Stock market for nature in NSW?

["David McDonald (personal)" <>]

Greetings, a crucially important matter wrt the conservation of native birds and their habitats - David

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Subject:	Stock market for nature in NSW?
Date:	Thu, 09 Mar 2017 06:03:05 +0000
From:	Daisy - Nature Conservation Council m("nature.org.au","hello");"> <>
To:	David McDonald m("dnmcdonald.id.au","david");"> <>

David --

Late last year our government voted to scrap our land-clearing protections, paving the way for bushland to be bulldozed across the state. One of the biggest ways they tried to justify their new laws was through a new set of biodiversity offsetting rules.

The new rules mean that if a developer wanted to chop down a tree in Woolloomooloo, in theory they could ‘offset’ it by protecting or planting a similar tree in Wollongong. The government claims this would result in no overall loss of biodiversity.

Well, our experts have done the research and their claims (unsurprisingly) don’t stack up!

We’ve just released a new report ‘Paradise Lost’. The report shows that, far from ensuring no loss in biodiversity, offsetting rules are pushing the endangered plants and animals they’re supposed to protect closer to extinction.

You can watch the NBN news report here (if you don't have Facebook, click 'not now' when it asks you to sign up and you can still watch the video).

It should be common sense that nature doesn’t work like the stock market, you shouldn't be able to buy and trade our endangered plants and animals for a similar species elsewhere in the state.

Yet that is what the NSW government wants to allow! Their use of dodgy offsets is a form of greenwash that gives extremely harmful developments a veil of environmental credibility they don’t deserve.

We know the new land-clearing laws will be bad, but the devil will be in the detail.

The full codes and regulations that underpin the new laws, including all the details about this new biodiversity offsetting scheme, are going to be released any day now. Stay tuned for the important submission period, where we can have our say on these news details.

It’s crucial we’re ready to stand up for nature, by sending in a flurry of submissions that show our government has no social licence to implement these dodgy policies.

Thanks for your commitment to nature. I’ll be in touch as soon as the submission period begins with more ways you can help!

Daisy, for the Nature Conservation Council

-- More information --

• Biodiversity offsets report - Paradise Lost: The weakening and widening of biodiversity offsetting in NSW, 2005-2016. View here.

• Newcastle Herald article - Hunter Region biodiversity under pressure. View here.

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