Nature NSW Winter 2024

Gary Dunnett, CEO, NPANSW

On the 8th of May 2024 the NSW Government published the ‘NSW biodiversity outlook report 2024’.  The majority of NPA’s conservation advocacy is focused on that most positive of pursuits, the establishment of new National Parks and Protected Areas, and this journal makes every attempt to reflect those ambitions by adopting a positive tone.  But how does one stay positive in the face of such sombre predictions, notably that at least half of the species currently listed as threatened in NSW will be extinct within a century? 

The dire predictions in the biodiversity outlook are based on the current situation, in other words, particularly the amount of natural habitat that has already been lost forever.  If we continue to lose habitat at the current rate the situation will get even worse.  If we want to avoid these outcomes, the only pathway is the protection of remaining natural habitats and massive restoration programs to give our native species the homes they need to survive.

The biodiversity outlook tells us that the biggest drivers of species loss, habitat clearance and modification, have accelerated over the last decade.  Agricultural clearance, forestry, urban sprawl and mega-fires have all reached unprecedented levels.  All the dire warnings about the dangers of the 2016 changes to native vegetation laws have proved dramatically understated rather than overblown.  Australia, and NSW in particular, shows the most reckless land clearing rates in the western world. 

So where to now?  Australia is a signatory to the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).  All GBF signatories are pledged to ambitious targets for the restoration and protection of natural landscapes.  Yet, as the biodiversity outlook demonstrates, our current nature laws and daily collective actions undermine any chance of reaching those goals. 

The starting point is legislative change to prohibit any further loss of significant habitats and populations and set binding targets for the GBF targets for environmental restoration and the establishment of Protected Areas and Conservation Areas.  In the NSW context, that means radical changes to the Local Land Services Act, removing self-assessment of land clearing applications, designating no-clearance areas and building in genuine recompense for private land conservation.  Similar changes, enabling the issue of a firm ‘no’ to environmentally damaging development, are required for the Biodiversity Conservation Act. 

NPA’s submissions to both legislative reviews went even further, recommending the replacement of the current legislative arrangements with one consolidated set of nature laws and a parallel piece of legislation for all forms of Protected Area, including National Parks, Nature Reserves, Flora Reserves, Marine Parks, Aquatic Reserves and Travelling Stock Reserves.  We argued that it is time to stop tweaking outdated laws and get serious about restoring and protecting nature. 

Laws are just a starting point.  Just as important is the willingness of Governments to adopt policies for real change rather than just going through the motions.  Knowing that fully half of our threatened species are on track to imminent extinction, how can any government support the continuation of public native forestry?  How could any responsible government continue to turn a blind eye to runaway land clearing?  And how could anyone who cares about the future continue to ignore the plight of our coastal waters?  So let’s take those blindly obvious problems and respond with the policies, strategies and actions we need to get on a sustainable footing: a pathway out of native forest logging; support for the shift to regenerative farming practices; and the end to the pretence of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for marine conservation. 

It may be a dire picture, but from peril comes determination.  And the solutions really aren’t hidden, they just need the will to make hard decisions. 

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