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Native Vegetation
Senate Inquiry: Native Vegetation Laws, Greenhouse Gas Abatement and Climate Change Measures
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The objectives of this priority area are to:
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The Association continues to fight against the government shifting the cost of public conservation on private land holders and failing to apply ‘triple bottom line’ sustainability principles when implementing native vegetation controls. The Productivity Commission, in its major report, Impacts of Native Vegetation and Biodiversity Regulations (2004) found that native vegetation legislation imposed unreasonable costs on farmers and was an inefficient way of achieving public conservation outcomes in rural Australia. To illustrate, economic analysis undertaken by the Commission found that prohibitions on broadscale clearing could reduce the present value of expected net returns (2003 dollars) to land, capital and management (over a 40-year period) in Moree Plains Shire (NSW) by $27–$84 million, depending on the productivity of newly-cleared land, and by $42–$124 million in Murweh Shire (Queensland). The Commission concluded that better environmental outcomes could be achieved at less cost to the community overall and landholders in particular. It recommended that a priority was to remove impediments to private conservation (imposed by the current laws); developing a formal process for equitably sharing costs; and properly considering social and economic impacts in relation to clearing approvals. Governments Australia wide have continued to ignore these recommendations. |
