VEGETATION PLAN
The Clarence Regional Vegetation Committee draft plan has been front-page news recently. According to the Daily Examiner, "local farmers believe the policy is . . . totally unworkable, as they need to clear vegetation for farming purposes." Why? Because the land that was cleared 50 years ago has become less productive due to salinity, erosion and compaction. Never mind, just clear some more! This draft Regional Vegetation Management Plan (RVMP) is putting into practice the Native Vegetation Conservation act of 1997, which introduced the concept of RVMPs as the main tool to assist in the conservation and management of native vegetation.
The current exemptions allowing the clearing of 2 hectares per year and 7 trees per hectare don’t take into account the environmental significance of the vegetation being cleared. The draft plan seeks to protect, conserve and enhance native vegetation of high significance including wetlands, steep land (>18 degree slope), and riparian land (within 20 metres of larger streams). It does allow for clearing around houses (30 m), sheds (20 m), regrowth in paddocks and 1 tree per hectare per year but protects threatened species habitat, hollow trees and trees of greater than 80 cm diameter.
Farmers will still be able to clear over and above the exemptions by obtaining a Development Consent from the Department of Land & Water Conservation which will consider the environmental significance of the land. Not that they have much to fear in any case – not one of 360 reported breaches of the Native Vegetation Conservation Act has been taken to court by DLWC since it came into force in 1998.
The Endangered Species Scientific Sub-Committee which reports to the Commonwealth minister under the Environment Protection and Conservation of Biodiversity Act 1999 is strongly of the view that land clearance has been the most significant threatening process in Australia since European settlement. The sub-committee also believes clearing continues to be a significant threatening process and if not controlled it will lead to additional species becoming endangered.
Each generation says "Well, I’m just clearing this little bit" with no thought of how much has been cleared by previous generations and how much will be left for the next century’s inhabitants, human and animal.
Neither major party wants the environment to be an issue in the election. They pay lip service to the environment but they’d rather focus on the really important issues like the economy! No-one seems to realise that without a stable environment, there won’t be an economy to worry about. Increasing soil salinity, erosion of topsoil, reduced farm productivity, extinctions of flora and fauna and a reduction in the quality of drinking water are just some of the consequences we can look forward to.
To find out more, try these Internet links:
http://abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/specials/landclr/script.htm
http://nccnsw.org.au/veg/projects/LandClearing/background.html