Submitted by keith on

The environmental impact assessment for walking tracks and other visitor facilities are failing to adequately protect threatened species and environmental assets. The assessment for the Lost City track in the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area estimated a potential 15% loss of a threatened plant population. This impact didn't trigger public exhibition or further environmental assessment and points to a fundamental flaw in the existing regulations.

The current NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) guidelines for environmental assessments in protected areas are insufficient.

  • Inadequate Impact Thresholds: The triggers for detailed assessment or public exhibition are  too high. For example, it requires a threatened species population to be "placed at risk of extinction" by the proposed works—a threshold often interpreted by the NPWS as a 30% population loss. This is an inappropriate standard for a national park, where the core management policy is to prevent extinctions[i].
  • Lack of Public Consultation and Local Expert Input: The environmental assessment for Lost City and stage 1 of the Pagoda Walk were conducted in winter, a season "not conducive to locating species" (page 45, Lost City REF ). Public exhibition of the Lost City track proposal would have allowed local naturalists and experts to provide crucial information on other threatened species present in the area, such as Hibbertia cistiflora subsp. quadristaminae and Asterolasia buckinghamii, enabling track design to reduce environmental harm.
  • Flawed Track Modification Process: Instead of reducing the identified impacts, the track was extended through a modification proposal, causing further environmental harm. The track proposal was extended through a nationally endangered shrub swamp and removed more threatened plants than initially.

Requested Administrative Actions

To prevent future environmental damage and ensure due process, we request the following administrative changes:

  1. Eliminate the Extinction Test: The current test requiring a species to be "placed at risk of extinction" should be removed as a trigger for public exhibition in national parks and conservation areas. Proposed visitor facilities that pose such a risk should be relocated or cancelled entirely, not simply subjected to a more detailed assessment. National parks should not be a venue for developments that threaten local extinction.
  2. Set a Low the Impact Threshold for Public Exhibition: Implement a new rule where any environmental assessment for proposed works in a national park or state conservation area that causes more than negligible harm to the heritage values of a protected area must be publicly exhibited for comment and review. This aligns with standards seen in other sectors, such as mining, where even "greater than negligible environmental consequences" trigger significant compensation measures.

The threshold for public exhibition and further environmental assessment must be lowered. Any proposed visitor facilities in a national park that causes more than a negligible environmental impact to threatened species, communities, Aboriginal heritage, other heritage, or geodiversity must be subject to public exhibition and subsequent review.

 

[i] September 2021, the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) announced a Threatened Species Framework for zero extinctions for species within the NSW national park estate. This framework surely must require the NPWS to ensure its proposed works and visitor facilities will not cause ‘greater than negligible’ harm to threatened species and communities.