Same Fight, Same Enemy, Make Your Email Count

Changes to the Native Vegetation Act could open the door for wholesale clearing of NSW's woodland.

The NSW government is proposing changes to the Native Vegetation Act (2003), which could allow unscrupulous land holders to clear what they like when they like.

Submissions for this have now closed.

I apologise, but I only heard about this from my Ecologist friend Wendy Hawes yesterday.

However, like with the Office of Coal Seam Gas, you can still have an input, by emailing and making a simple statement.

The bulk of this article deals with what I know, and if you wish to have things fleshed out a bit, then read on.

However, if you simply wish to make an input into the debate, here are the relevant emails.

Minister for the Environment, Rob Stokes: [e-mail]

Department of the Environment: [e-mail]

Here is a sample of what you might say:

"I wish the Minister and the Department of the Environment and Heritage to make it harder, not easier, to clear woodland in NSW."

Simple stuff, again it's not official, but enough people emailing can have an effect by weight of numbers.

Thankfully for all of us here in NSW, my ecologist friend Wendy Hawes has been on the job (as usual) and she has been able to make a formal submission.

Over 500 submissions have been received about this, and I strongly suspect that many of them are farmers without an ecological bone in their body, asking for those hippy, pinko, bong-smoking, pansy departmental regulations to be removed so they can get on with destroying the environment without hindrance.

Fleshing it out

Last week I emailed Wendy Hawes of the Envirofactor.

Wendy it was who first tipped me off to the goings on at Leard Forest, which led to the articles that you may have read.

I said in my email, "Wendy, if there's anything going on for you at the moment that you feel could do with a wider audience, feel free to tell me and I'll do an article on it."

She duly replied and said, "Well, Lachlan, I don't know if it's of interest, but there are proposed changes to the Native Vegetation Act, I've made a submission, I think that's worth talking about."

She then sent me her submission, and I read it, and almost gave birth with shock.

The State government want to make it easier for farmers to clear native woodland.

Please note, at Wendy's request, and my vehement agreement, the word "scrub" is now outlawed, "woodland" is the word please.

Wendy showed me that people who wish to clear something invariably call it "scrub" as this word has a negative connotation, and makes the area in question sound like a shoddy, shabby, useless piece of land that would be better once the "scrub" trees have been removed.

So Woodland only please.

Anyway, currently there are regulations that farmers who wish to clear, have to follow.

These are pissweak enough, and so when i read Wendy's submission indicating that the Baird Government wish to water these down and make it easier to clear, I simply couldn't believe it.

Currently a farmer has to deliver a clearing plan to the local land management service saying what they wish to do.

The relevant department, Soil and Water Conservation, for instance, then approve or disapprove of this plan.

The proposed changes would mean that this process no longer has to be followed, and the farmer can self-assess, whether clearing needs to be done.

AKA: If I get up one morning and decide to bulldoze the bottom forty, then I'm gonna bloody well do it.

There are several sections involved:

Invasive Native Species (INS)

Wendy says in this section that the major flaw with self-assessment is that there is no threshold for what defines "invasive".

Ten plants a hectare? Twenty? 100? 10,000?

There is no indication of when a plant is invasive.

What's more, some plants that are considered weeds by farmers, actually play a vital role in the recovery of the land after fire, for example.

But because of the totally subjective nature of self-assessable codes, if a farmer sees one weed, then he will be within his rights to bulldoze the area.

Tree Sizes

The new code would see a blanket size for all trees girths to be measured by, 80cm.

Thus, if a paddock tree is 75cm, then the farmer can remove it without any qualm.

The fact that different species have different maturity sizes, seems not to have entered anyone thoughts.

EG: A Black Cypress is mature with a 30cm girth, yet it could be removed under the new code, as a shrubby weed.

Threatened Ecological Communities (TECs)

Wendy says here:

"As a result of on-going clearing for agriculture these vegetation communities, such as Coolibah and Black Box woodlands, are now at risk of extinction.

Regeneration is essential to the recovery of these communities.

From an ecological viewpoint, it is therefore inconsistent to include their clearing under this self-assessable code.

In fact to ensure the recovery of these communities, all regeneration should be listed as ‘protected regrowth’ under the NV Act.

Any further clearing must require a PVP so that a more detailed assessment (by suitably qualified persons) can be undertaken of the condition of the regenerating community and its importance in a landscape context."

Inappropriate classification of methods (this is a doozy)

Wendy says in her submission:

"I am at a loss to understand under what definition chaining is regarded as minimal soil disturbance.

The uprooting of the shrubs and trees using this method, let alone the dragging of a heavy chain across the soil surface, will cause substantial soil surface disturbance. Chaining, roping and slashing will also remove essential fauna habitat features such as surface rock, litter and fallen logs."

Wendy did say to me that she wanted to let loose some swearing here, but had to control herself in a formal submission.

Thus I'll do it for her.

"What sort of fucking idiot thinks that clearing the land with a forty tonne bulldozer, using a fucking chain that has links the size of a beach ball is minimal fucking soil disturbance."

There's more, much much more, but I am going to add the lot in a fuller article for Independent Australia.

For the time being, get your email in and help preserve NSW's native woodland.