North Coast environmentalists are being urged to travel to Coffs Harbour tomorrow to have their say on plans to rewrite laws that protect native plants and animals in NSW.
The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage is holding a community information session at the Coffs Harbour showground.
It is the only government briefing for people on the whole of the north coast.
The Nature Conservation Council of NSW said an analysis of the new package of changes had identified a number of flaws.
Chief executive Kate Smolski said the draft biodiversity package would spell disaster for nature on the north coast by enabling increased land clearing and habitat destruction.
‘They would have been cheering in the boardrooms of big agribusiness and property developers when Mr Baird announced this package.
‘He is doing their bidding by agreeing to sweep away the Native Vegetation Act and introduce much weaker nature conservation laws.
‘Mr Baird’s Bill appears more concerned with fast-tracking land clearing than conserving nature, and has clearly been crafted to please big agribusiness and the developer lobby.
‘If it passes parliament in its current form and becomes law, there will be more extinctions, more farms destroyed by soil erosion and salinity, and more greenhouse gas pollution fuelling runaway climate change.
‘In Queensland, land-clearing rates trebled under Campbell Newman’s LNP government. Mr Baird is squandering an historic opportunity to develop strong conservation laws to addresses the mounting extinction emergency in NSW.’
The government is conducting six public briefings. They are being held in Sydney, Wagga Wagga, Dubbo, Coffs Harbour, Newcastle, Tamworth and Nowra.
The Coffs Harbour meeting at the showgrounds begins at 5pm and will run until 7.30pm on 24 May (tomorrow)
Well everyone, the fact is, that 42% of in the Western region also unbelievably misses out on these info or I will use the government’s new catch cry “drop-in sessions”.
Instead of ensuring the whole of NSW is informed about changes in enviro protection laws/land use laws/vegetation protection laws, it seems that they only bother with a select few areas. I had to travel 6 1/2 hours to Wagga Wagga because they have omitted the rest of the Western district! Then they add one in Cobar which is 7 1/2 hours away!
We who live in Wentworth, Buronga, Hay, Broken Hill are forced to dodge kangaroos, emus, cattle, sheep to look at posters on a wall. No power point informing us, instead we have to wander around to each little poster and try to glean what is happening, outnumbered by consultants.
Divide and conquer is the newest form of consultation and of course limiting who can access the sessions!
Pretty pathetic and totally unacceptable!