Craig Knowles
Minister for Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources
GPO Box 39 20 December 2004
SYDNEY NSW 2001

Re. Native Vegetation Reform Regulation

The Coastwatchers Association regards the issue of native vegetation management as one of the most important areas in need of reform in New South Wales. Accordingly we have given this submission a great deal of thought and support the direction of the reforms. We have suggested below amendments to the draft regulation that we feel will improve the outcome for landholders, local government and the environment.

Part 1 (3)
There needs to be additional definitions to explain the terms sustainable grazing, gardens, regrowth and routine agricultural maintenance activities.

Sustainable grazing may already be defined by the Department of Primary Industries.

Gardens - Coastwatchers believes should be described by area or by including the term commercial garden. For a non-commercial garden we suggest that the area be limited to the asset protection zone around the house.

Regrowth should be defined here too but there should be a clause protecting identified/mapped environmentally important regrowth.

Our Association is concerned that landholders do not have to apply to clear regrowth but in some cases regrowth may be the only native vegetation on the property (or at least most of it). It could also be needed to reconnect habitat corridors.

Routine Agricultural Maintenance Activities (RAMAs) should also be defined.
What activities qualify and what do not? Can RAMAs be used as an excuse to clear land zoned rural residential? If so this would be a serious concern given the small size of some of these landholdings, often less than a hectare in our Shire.

Part 3 (8)
This section does not make it clear that the Property Vegetation Plan (PVP) only applies to a single parcel of land or parcels of land under the ownership of a single entity. Coastwatchers feel that to avoid confusion this needs to be clearly spelt out.

Also we are concerned that off site considerations may be used to influence the outcome of any PVPs, for instance the proximity of National Parks or other crown lands. Therefore we would suggest wording to the effect "off site considerations will not influence a PVP" be included as 8(j) in the regulation.

Part 3 (11)
Concerning the register of PVPs it is much more common for allegations of illegal clearing to be reported to Local Government rather than to a Catchment Management Authority (CMA) or State Department. Bear in mind that many rural towns do not have any office of the relevant department within hundreds of kilometres. Therefore the register needs to be available to Local Government at the very least and ideally to be a totally public document. Our preferred outcome is for this register to be available online to the public.

It would be good if Council could incorporate the plans on its computerised Geographic Information System. At the very least there should be topographic map references or GPS locations on the PVPs.

Part 4 Routine Agricultural Management Activities
Our Association objects strongly to the proposal that RAMAs can be used to clear remnant vegetation and protected land without the need to get permission (Fact Sheet 2). Who decides if the clearing is to the "minimum extent necessary"?

Clearing of remnant vegetation or protected land should have to go through an approvals process without exception.

Part 4 (14)
Gardens - As outlined earlier in this submission this term needs to be defined.

Part 4 (16)
In order to cover all infrastructure issues any new electricity cables should be required to be underground where native vegetation is present. This has been recently successfully done in the Batemans Bay region thus ensuring that road side and private property vegetation was retained.

Part 4 (16) (1) (b)
The buffer distances for holdings of 10 ha or more that are not in the Western Division should be the same as for small holdings not in the Western Division -- subclause (2) (a)-(h)

Part 6 (23)
Fact Sheet 3 says --
* protected regrowth is regrowth that has been identified as protected in a PVP, an environmental planning instrument, certain natural resource management plans or an interim protection order under the Act: or
* has been grown or preserved using public funding granted for biodiversity conservation purposes

However, the regulations do not seem to provide for identified protected regrowth unless it is on steep or highly erodible land or protected riparian land. Even then the protected regrowth can be cleared for RAMAs or rotational farming (Fact Sheet 2) to the minimum extent necessary. Clearing of such vegetation without permission is contrary to the objectives of the Act.

If any public funds have been spent to establish the regrowth it should be protected, not just if the money was for biodiversity conservation. For example, public money could have been used to revegetate for salinity control, erosion control, etc.

Schedule 1 Penalty Notices Offences
Coastwatchers believe that the penalties are far too lenient as they stand. We would suggest that a more appropriate level of penalty is to increase the penalties by $10,000 for individuals and $50,000 for corporations. This creates a realistic incentive to not breach the conditions under the Act.

General Comments

Auditing
Auditing will be an important part of this process and we feel that the relevant agency should devote an appropriate level of resources to this role. On ground monitoring can deliver accurate information to the government as well as provide an extension service to the landholders.

Are there enough trained people to do the field assessments? It appears the person would have to be expert in identifying native vegetation including grasses, in identifying native animals and likely habitats, in water quality, soils, and salinity. If the data is not accurate the PVP will not be much use.

Methodology
Regarding the methodology that underpins the model for the PVPs we note that the statistics to estimate the level of clearing of specific vegetation types is based on the research of David Keith. Coastwatchers know that there is data available that can be utilised that will provide a clearer picture of the percentage of clearing of vegetation types.

One of the desired results of these new reforms is to have a system that is responsive to local conditions therefore as a priority the CMAs need to ensure that the existing data is compatible with the PVP Model.

Assessment Methodology
The riparian buffers (Table 3.1, p 6) are usually less than those in harvest plans for state forests. For example, in harvest plans first order streams (Minor streams) have buffers of 15m each side and 4th order streams (Major rivers) have 50m buffers. Since the forest buffers are considered by the Dept of Environment to be necessary to maintain water quality it would be better to use them in the regulations. The extra few metres would also help maintain biodiversity.

Clearing native vegetation within 20m of, and within, a stream listed in Appendix A cannot

be offset and presumably would not be allowed. However, it is not clear if the regulations allow clearing in lagoons, minor streams and wetlands. This should not be permitted.

Appendix A
The tables for some rivers are muddled. For example in Southern Rivers, pp 74-75 Pambula River is listed as a tributary of the Moruya River, and the Crookhaven River is said to be a tributary of the Clyde!

Conserving our native vegetation is vitally important to the well being of the state and our Association welcomes the government's moves to reduce the impacts of land clearing.

Jenny Edwards
Secretary,
The Coastwatchers Assoc Inc