1 day left to stop a project from being fast tracked in the NT

The government has plans to make the Territory “the easiest place to do business.”

These plans began with a step to fast track clearing permits up to 1,000ha from six months to six weeks. The applications must follow the generic land clearing guidelines and get a nod from the Pastoral Lands Board. That’s it. Those are the steps and then apparently it’s time to fire up the bulldozers.

The first ever “simplified” land clearing proposal was advertised on 16 July and it’s an epic fail.

The application to bulldoze 998.5 hectares of native vegetation at ...

The government has plans to make the Territory “the easiest place to do business.”

These plans began with a step to fast track clearing permits up to 1,000ha from six months to six weeks. The applications must follow the generic land clearing guidelines and get a nod from the Pastoral Lands Board. That’s it. Those are the steps and then apparently it’s time to fire up the bulldozers.

The first ever “simplified” land clearing proposal was advertised on 16 July and it’s an epic fail.

The application to bulldoze 998.5 hectares of native vegetation at Claravale Station will likely have significant impacts on eight threatened species which have been detected on or near the land—including the endangered gouldian finch.

There’s nothing “simple” about this application. It’s being rushed through with only two weeks for the public to comment.

Please sign the submission to the Pastoral Land Board telling them to reject the application or immediately refer it for assessment under Northern Territory and Commonwealth environmental laws.

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Image: Glenn Walker

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1 day to go

Submissions on the Claravale clearing application close midnight on 30 July.

There is only one more day to have your say.

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Subject:

Dear Pastoral Land Board,
I am writing to urgently request that you reject the application by Top End Pastoral Company to clear 998.5 hectares of native vegetation at Claravale Station.

The application to bulldoze 998.5 hectares of native vegetation at Claravale Station will likely have significant impacts on 8 threatened species which have been detected on or near the land in question.

The list of threatened species include:
- the ghost bat;
- the partridge pigeon (eastern);
- the gouldian finch;
- the pale field rat;
- the Victoria River squat snail;
- the Mertens’ water monitor;
- the Mitchell’s water monitor; and
- a rare bladderwort.

I submit that, given the number of threatened species located on the land in question, it is totally inappropriate that this application be assessed under the Gunner government’s “Simplified Pastoral Land Clearing guidelines”. This is not a simple application, but one which raises a number of complex issues about the impacts of this application on local (and perhaps regional) biodiversity.  It should be rejected, and resubmitted as a standard application, and immediately referred for assessment under the Environment Protection Act NT and Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (Cth) as it clearly meets the threshold of having the potential to have a significant impact on the environment and a number of matters of national environmental significance.

The applicant identified the risk to the threatened Partridge Pigeon as “medium” based on fieldwork conducted in the Application area. The Application therefore does not meet the criteria for the simplified process because it does not have a low likelihood of impacting threatened species and should be required to go through the Standard application process.

I am extremely concerned that 13% of the Daly catchment is already cleared, and there are no caps in place to prevent large scale devastation of this highly valued region, with irreversible impacts, including on the magnificent free-flowing Daly River. The “simplified guidelines” are a huge step backwards for protection of this ecosystem, and are likely to be inconsistent with the requirements of both Northern Territory and Commonwealth environmental legislation.

The Pastoral Land Act is not fit for purpose to protect the Northern Territory’s pastoral estate from habitat fragmentation and damage on the vast scale that is underway, and being proposed. The Northern Territory is completely unprepared to respond to the environmental threats posed by the proposed large-scale agricultural development, with piecemeal regulatory approvals that frustrate any attempts to strategically assess the likely cumulative impacts of these developments instead the norm. Urgent regulatory reform is needed so that landscape scale integrated protection and management of the Northern Territory’s unique savannas and freshwater systems can occur.

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