Dear NRPG members and interested,

For your information – Please see the attached submission from NRPG regarding the Exposure draft of the National Environmental Standards MNES by the Nature Reserves Preservation Group of Kalamunda.
Regards

Clive

Dear representatives for Kalamunda and surrounds, Federal and State:

Trish Cook MP

Adam Hort MP

Tania Lawrence MP

Zaneta Mascarenhas MP

The Nature Reserves Preservation Group of Kalamunda has made the attached submission on the Exposure Draft of the National Environmental Standards, which are part of the overhaul of the EPBC Act.

Our comments support those of Environmental Justice Australia and The Wilderness Society plus the following:

Summary:

Compared with the first draft of the National Environmental Standard for Matters of National Environmental Significance, the exposure draft appears to adopt stronger legislative framing and some firmer drafting language.

However, it does not cure the core defect of the first draft, that compliance can still be achieved on broad principles rather than demonstrated environmental outcomes.

In addition, the exposure draft appears to narrow threatened-species habitat protection by limiting protection to habitat that is “irreplaceable and necessary for the species to remain viable in the wild”. This makes the exposure draft weaker in practice than the first draft for threatened species and inconsistent with the stated objective of arresting environmental decline.

Unless the NES guarantees conservation outcomes, we will continue to degrade and destroy our Environment. The exposure draft as it stands will not achieve the intention of fundamental objectives of the overhaul of the EPBC Act to address the recommendations of the Samuels Review, and therefore must be revised to do so.

Kind regards,
Steve Gates

Secretary, NRPG Inc.