The New South Wales government has made it easier for landholders to clear critically endangered grassy woodlands for agriculture and forestry in the state’s south east.
The environment minister, Matt Kean, and the agriculture minister, Adam Marshall, have introduced a regulation that covers two grassy woodlands newly listed as critically endangered under NSW laws: the Monaro grassy woodlands and the Werriwa grassy woodlands.
It comes as the government is under fire for overseeing increased land clearing across the state and for considering opening up protected old growth forest in the state’s north to the timber industry.
Marshall said the amendment to the native vegetation code “is about maintaining the status quo and ensuring primary producers who have farmed in the region for generations can continue to do so while responsibly managing the land.”
He said without the changes “uncertainty would be cast over the future viability” of a number of farming and grazing operations in the region.
Both the Monaro and Werriwa grassy woodlands are what is known as an ecological community, which is habitat that consists of multiple species.
They were designated critically endangered in NSW at the end of June after an assessment by the state’s scientific committee.
Previously, landholders were not permitted to clear land where critically endangered communities were known to occur unless they made an application to the state’s native vegetation panel or the clearing was for small items such as a fence line.
But under the amendment to the state’s native vegetation code – published Friday but made on 8 July – landholders will be allowed to clear if an assessment by local land services staff determines the quality of the grassy woodlands is low and unlikely to be viable in the long term.
This approach already applies to ecological communities declared vulnerable or endangered, but this is the first instance where it has been used for critically endangered communities.
The independent MLC Justin Field will move in the NSW parliament this week for the new regulation to be disallowed.
“This is just the latest gift to farming mates from the Liberal National government who refuse to be influenced by science or guided by fair process,” Field said.
“This sets a dangerous precedent by singling out a small but noisy constituency for special treatment.”
The decision follows recent scrutiny of federal and state investigations involving grasslands in the Monaro region which were allegedly cleared illegally by a company part-owned by the federal energy and emissions reduction minister Angus Taylor.
The grassy woodlands that are the subject of the NSW amendment are different ecological communities to the grasslands in the Taylor case, but they do occur in the same area.
The NSW government has not made clear why these grassy woodlands, in particular, were captured by the new amendment.
The Monaro grassy woodlands are found in the south-eastern highlands region of NSW, and the Werriwa grassy woodlands are found in both the south-eastern highlands and the south-east corner bioregions.
When the NSW threatened species scientific committee made its determination, it said the intent was that “all occurrences of the ecological community (both recorded and as yet unrecorded, and independent of their condition) that occur within this bioregion be covered by this determination”.
Chris Gambian, the chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, said ecologists had warned the government recently that both grassy woodlands “are on the threshold of extinction”.
“The government’s response is now to give big agribusiness licence to clear it all by creating a loophole big enough to drive a bulldozer through,” Gambian said.
Evan Quartermain, the head of programs at the Australian arm of Humane Society International, said the practicality of regulations was important from both a community engagement and compliance perspective when it came to preserving threatened habitats in highly managed agricultural regions.
But he said when the habitats in question were on the brink of extinction – as demonstrated by a critically endangered listing – “the science must be respected and their protection paramount”.
“When NSW environment laws were overhauled in 2016 the fact that critically endangered habitats were the only ones for which clearing couldn’t be authorised through a code was a sore point for the conservation movement,” he said.
“It was a decision that meant inevitable destruction of more endangered and vulnerable habitats, and that code amendments are now being made to remove the higher standard that would otherwise apply to the most threatened biodiversity is very disappointing.”
Marshall said both of the new listed communities occurred in areas that were “already significantly degraded by a long history of active agricultural use”.
“These changes will deliver a balanced outcome. They will ensure adequate protections for ecological communities while protecting farmers’ right to farm,” he said.
Kean said it would bring a more practical approach to protecting threatened species on private land.
“This approach has been taken, due to specific regulatory implications arising from the threatened species scientific committee’s listing of the grassy woodlands in the Monaro and Werriwa tablelands,” he said.
“The NSW government’s approach protects the environment while allowing landholders flexibility to manage their land in cases where the vegetation does not form an ecological community that would be viable in the long term.”