The ACT's Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment has sounded the alarm for nature in the Bush Capital, with a new report tabled in the Legislative Assembly today.
"When the Greens were in Cabinet fighting for environment funding, Labor's Treasurer pushed nature's needs to the bottom of the pile," said Greens Deputy Leader Jo Clay. "That's got to change."
"As the Commissioner says, healthy biodiversity is essential to the natural world and fundamental to human life."
The Commissioner's new 'Close to the Edge' report focuses on the impact of urban expansion and says the federal environment law, the EPBC Act, "is in effect legislation for development approvals, rather than legislation for environmental protection."
The report says, "government spending on the environment at all jurisdictional levels is meagre and demonstrably inadequate… It is therefore hard to take the view that biodiversity protection is a genuine priority for the ACT. Additional allocations of funding in the ACT Government budget are required for better environmental outcomes."
The Greens, now on the crossbench, secured a commitment from the ACT's minority government last month to set 'city limits,' to prevent endless sprawl of suburbs into bushland.
"Last term Labor refused to take the Commissioner's advice to set an urban growth boundary, but last month we got them to agree. Now we need to make sure they follow through and protect what's left of the precious environments surrounding our city," said Ms Clay, the Greens Member for Ginninderra and spokesperson on the Environment.
"We've also got a lot of work to do on reviving nature in the city, so I hope Labor's new Environment Minister will take the Commissioner's recommendations seriously."
Greens Member for the Gungahlin electorate of Yerrabi, Andrew Braddock, said the Commissioner's recommendations relating to artificial grass went further than his motion that was agreed to in the Assembly last week.
"The Commissioner has clearly identified the significant adverse environmental impacts from artificial grass and made recommendations to the Government to effectively reduce these impacts. The ball is now in the Government's court to take effective action to protect our environment," Mr Braddock said.
Background
- The report "confirms the decline in the extent and condition of biodiversity in the ACT over decades," saying it "is an outcome that can and has been expected as a result of decisions made in planning Canberra's urban environment."
- The report flags that Canberra's reputation as the "Bush Capital" is at stake. It says many of our conservation reserves are in poor condition, and some of our areas of highest conservation value are outside the reserve system with insufficient protection. The report specifically calls for the gazettal of Bluett's Block as a nature reserve, which was agreed to as part of the Greens' City Limits motion last month.
- Damningly, the report tells us that "the environment lacks primacy in legislation and is rarely prioritised in implementation of government policy."
