This response refers to the recent posting about large forest owl habitat in
Lake Macquarie. The situation is interesting and hardly surprising but not
perhaps for reasons immediately apparent.
I am going to play devil's advocate first off and consider whether there could
have been merit in the Commonwealth's decision to determine the action "not
controlled". In this case, "not controlled" would mean not likely to have a
significant impact on large forest owls. Note, if an action is considered "not
controlled" there is no requirement for Federal Environmental Impact Assessment
(EIA) - this does not necessarily mean no EIA, it just means that the "trigger"
for Commonwealth involvement was not met. State processes may still apply.
There are two parts to the issue:
1) whether the Commonwealth may have been correct in legal terms; and
2) whether the EPBC Act or complementary state legislation could protect such
species from development, including cumulative impacts (i.e. if the effects of
lots of similar "not controlled" actions combine).
I haven't the time to read the documentation but the amount of accompanying
PDFs and the response below, indicate that there was independent review of the
potential effects before submission of evidence to the Commonwealth. Large
forest owl habitat seems to have been identified, so why would the Commonwealth
make this decision when there are clearly protected species and their habitat
on site?
The Commonwealth would believe that the threshold for a "significant impact"
was not met. They would have considered the evidence and determined that a
significant impact risk was so low as to be within the realms of speculation.
This very low level of threshold for triggering Commonwealth EIA reflects a
number of benchmark court decisions. To avoid Commonwealth EIA, there should be
virtually no evidence of a significant impact occurring. There was clearly some
evidence of a potential impact, so the decision will have been determined based
on the significance of the effect and what significant actually means.
Significant does have a 'legal' definition (important or notable, within an
appropriate context or intensity). However, this definition is strongly
influenced by practical elements of the EPBC Act and existing methods of
assessing impacts. I've briefly discussed these below.
COULD THE COMMONWEALTH HAVE BEEN CORRECT IN LEGAL TERMS?
Not knowing the details of this specific issue, I couldn't make any assertions
about the reliability of evidence, and I am not going to to do so. There is the
possibility that consultants came to the view that large forest owls can
withstand such habitat fragmentation. There are a few good studies to support
this conclusion so it would not surprise me.
The fact is that in this situation the scope for application of the EPBC Act to
protected species habitat loss is very narrow. It matters less if habitat is
affected as, although cumulative impacts on species are supposed to be a
consideration, this is barely possible to measure. The focus is therefore
almost entirely on species populations (rather than species habitat). In
practice, unless there was a possibility that the road construction would:
a) result in removal of habitat that could cause large forest owl mortality; AND
b) this would be likely to substantially threaten the extinction of the
species...
it would be extremely unlikely that the Commonwealth would see fit to impose
their control over the action. Even if they had determined the action to be
"controlled" (i.e. Commonwealth EIA required), the subsequent assessment report
would probably conclude the same as the existing evidence and result in
approval. So what would be achieved is a delay in the project, extra paperwork
and administrative effort, all for the same result.
The Commonwealth can only operate within the constraints of their EPBC Act.
This doesn't necessarily mean however, that this creates the outcome that we
expect from such legislation.
HOW COULD THINGS HAVE BEEN DONE DIFFERENTLY?
There are two possible ways:
1) The habitat lost really was a significant part of large forest owl habitat,
perhaps at the local scale, and it could cause local extinction. An alternative
was not to approve the action.
2) The decision to call it "not controlled" was adequate but perhaps there
could have been requirements to offset lost habitat.
We could endlessly debate point 1 but I am fairly sure it would be fruitless as
there is likely to be no black and white answer. As I said earlier, my sense is
that the decision was probably made for good reasons. Outside the law, this
doesn't necessarily mean it is a "good" decision for large forest owl
conservation but we cannot necessarily blame decision-makers for this.
I am going to concentrate on Point 2 as this is more commonly overlooked but
really important for addressing cumulative impacts.
State legislation has got the potential to address cumulative impacts (e.g. NSW
Biobanking legislation) so the Commonwealth in some cases might choose not to
be involved, as they would just be duplicating effort. Nevertheless, they can
where necessary, call an action "controlled" then assign the assessment to a
state government process. A question you may ask is:
Given that large forest owls are nationally and internationally threatened, why
would the Commonwealth not use their powers to demand habitat management and
offset, especially when they have approved / will approve other habitat-loss
actions, all of which at some unknown point, would result in a significant
cumulative impact?
Our Commonwealth currently has no reasonable commitment to offsets, so they
have no policy under which they can force states to address landscape-level
habitat integrity and fragmentation issues.
CONCLUSION
The problem is that the Commonwealth's scope of consideration is limited in
practice. This is both because the EPBC Act focuses to a large degree on
specific matters such as protected species, rather than "biodiversity" (which
includes landscape-level structure, function and composition). Take a moment to
consider this last sentence as it is the main reason why we don't get the
results we are looking for.
In situations like this, I would always recommend a nicely worded letter to the
Commonwealth but not necessarily blaming them for their poor decision. We must
recognise that their decisions are made within boundaries...and acknowledge
that they are aware of failures and are perhaps keen to receive useful
recommendations.
In my experience, the Commonwealth are thorough and they do care, but don't
necessarily have the tools they would like. It is time that we lobbied for
better biodiversity protection in legislation and policy. This is something
that Birds Australia and other groups, if better informed, could take up on
members' behalf. However in most cases, these groups are also so
species-focused that they miss opportunity to leverage for change.
If we keep repeating concerns about protected species, without giving the
authorities an alternative option, the message is so trite that it is
practically useless. I have virtually given up reading conservation articles in
Wingspan because they never understand this fundamental problem ... the message
is falling on deaf ears.
As for public concern being shut down. I am not sure this is the case. I can
think of several opportunities that would have been available for comment. The
problem is that you won't always know about these. There is a presumption that
people should find out but perhaps not enough effort to seek public
consultation. That is a subject for another email.
Regards,
Simon Mustoe CEnvP, MEIANZ, MIEEM.
Convenor, Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand Ecology Group
(http://eianzecology.blogspot.com)
Director, AES Applied Ecology Solutions PL.
> Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:29:09 +1000
> From:
> To:
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Masked, Powerful, Sooty and Barking Owl Habitat
> Trashed in Lake Macquarie
>
> Hi all,
>
> Yet more bad news from the Lake Macquarie area for those of us interested
> in forest owls, large and small. Another open cut and auger mine proposal
> is threatening remaining tracts of bushland in the region, but in the
> meantime a 4km road has been ripped through a crucial green corridor
> supporting owl habitat in the area.
>
> An area of bushland identified by independent scientists such as Mick
> Todd, and even a few "ecological consultants", plus the Department of
> Conservation and Climate Change in NSW, as being part of important large
> forest owl habitat has been destroyed and fragmented by construction of
> yet another coal haul road facilitating coal export infrastructure in the
> area.
>
> The road cuts through a significant section of bushland that will be
> familiar to all those who've had the fortune to have taken a wander
> through the area, perhaps chasing a rare sighting of male Masked Owls
> engaging in their fascinating courtship flights and so on. Amazingly, one
> group of ecological consultants who worked on the assessments also called
> in a Barking Owl which I think to be a very rare record for the area, but
> further testimony to why it was and still is considered important and
> worthy of conservation.
>
> On a more troubling note, what I would like to bring everyone's attention
> to as well is the way that public scrutiny of these sorts of actions is at
> increasing risk of being shut down: anyone interested might have a look at
> some of the documents supporting the company's referral under the
> Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The link is
> here:-
>
> http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/epbc/epbc_ap.pl?name=current_referral_detail&proposal_id=4722
>
> and tiny url
>
> http://tinyurl.com.au/x.php?1uoh
>
> The Government in their wisdom decided that the proposal was not a
> controlled action, so the destruction of bushland was not illegal, and of
> course the matter of owl habitat could not be considered under the EPBC
> Act as they are not federally listed species under that legislation. But
> ... although birders may not be interested in the threatened flora
> assessment they might be interested in the disclaimer in that report which
> states:
>
> "This report is the property of [insert name of proponent/mining company]
> and must not be referenced or reproduced without permission"
>
> If the public is unable to reference any report that is submitted as part
> of a public development application and approvals process without
> permission we are in serious trouble if any credible scientist or
> consultant or interested member of the public wishes to investigate and
> legitimately challenge aspects of such reports.
>
> Go check it all out on line though as I can't actually take the legal risk
> of naming the reports in this email. Thoughts and discussion welcome in
> the interests of birds and conservation.
>
> cheers
>
> Craig
>
>
>
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