The Department of Environment and Climate Change is proposing to further reduce enforcement of native vegetation law in NSW with staff cuts that would cumulatively represent a 75% reduction in officers over the last 12 months.
“The Government that talks tough on crime has gone soft on environmental criminals,” said Upper House Greens MP Ian Cohen.
“DECC’s record of prosecution under the Native Vegetation Act 2003 is pathetic. Since the Act came into force in December 2005 there have been no prosecutions at all. This Act was supposed to end broadscale land clearing.
“Even high profile cases such as the clearing adjacent to the internationally significant RAMSAR listed Gwydir wetlands in May 2007 are not resolved with any urgency. After eight months of investigation there is still no result.
“While they talk tough, in practice they’re giving the green light to those that want to clear land illegally by significantly reducing the prospect that prosecutions will arise from land clearing crimes.
“The Government is dog whistling to people in rural and regional NSW that are thinking about doing the wrong thing – ‘if you’re clearing land illegally in this state, don’t worry, we won’t come after you’.
“In a 2007 pre-election statement, Morris Iemma pledged to ‘end broadscale land clearing’. He went on to announce additional funding ‘to upgrade satellite monitoring’ and for ‘stronger on-the-ground enforcement’.
“Unfortunately, the only strong enforcement the Premier is practicing in this area is the enforcement of redundancies for those tasked with policing land clearing laws.
“In March 2007 there were over 40 officers policing illegal broadscale land clearing in NSW, with recommendations that another 20 to 30 officers were needed in order to ensure compliance on Native Vegetation laws.
“Instead of providing resources to fund more native vegetation officers, DECC has gone in the other direction and has made deep cuts to enforcement capacity. They’re now down from over 40 staff to 16, with proposals from management to cut that down further to under 10 staff.
“There are currently over 1000 alleged incidents of land clearing before the department of which approximately half were not allocated to officers for further investigation as of 19th November 2007.
“Enforcing native vegetation law to protect biodiversity and the climate is one area where the community expects this Government to be tough on crime.
It’s disturbing to read reports of wasteful law and order expenditure such as $700,000 spent on a water cannon - that even the police themselves did not want - at a time when crucial enforcement officers at DECC are being made redundant,” said Mr Cohen.
Further Information: Ian Cohen: 0409 989 466
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