Page 1791 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 6 June 2006
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will, however, still require an amendment to the national capital plan, a variation to the territory plan and an environmental impact assessment. Programming will also need to consider sequencing requirements, infrastructure provision and capital works.
The committee’s fourth recommendation was that the ACT government explore the option of maintaining the 25 hectares of yellow box/red gum and red stringy bark woodland in New South Wales adjacent to Goorooyarroo nature reserve. The government supports this and the ACT Planning and Land Authority and Environment ACT are consulting with the commonwealth, as the landowner, regarding the potential for securing the 25 hectares of woodland for conservation management purposes.
The government also supports the committee’s fifth recommendation about future draft variation documentation including information on ecological connectivity and regional targets for the protection of species, where appropriate. The committee’s sixth recommendation for cat containment to be mandatory in the new suburbs of Kenny and Throsby will be investigated further as part of the detailed planning for the suburbs. Any future extension of cat containment in Throsby will require further amendments to the Domestic Animal Services Act 2003.
The committee’s seventh recommendation was that current policy documents on environmental management be better streamlined and integrated into planning and environment legislation. The planning legislation requires that statutory policy documents, including action plans for the protection of endangered ecological communities and species, be taken into consideration. The government’s planning system reform project will also give further statutory recognition and clarification to impact assessment processes undertaken at the structure planning stage.
Mr Speaker, the eighth recommendation of the committee was that the ACT should introduce a state of the parks reporting system to identify management effectiveness and progress towards achieving protected area objectives. This recommendation is outside the scope of the variation process. However, it should be noted that the territory’s state of the environment report already addresses nature conservation and biodiversity.
The ninth recommendation of the committee was for committees involved in natural resource management on a local and regional scale to be reviewed and better integrated as a flow-on reform from the regional management framework. The government, through Environment ACT, advises that these committees are being reviewed and a proposal will be put to the government in the near future. A memorandum of understanding has been developed with the Murrumbidgee catchment authority addressing cooperative cross-border natural resource management in the region. This, again, is not within the scope of this variation.
The committee in its tenth recommendation advises that remnant vegetation with high conservation value on rural leases be better managed as wildlife corridors in land management agreements. This can form the basis for funding applications under the commonwealth’s Natural Heritage Trust and national action plan for salinity and water quality. The ACT landkeepers program funded by the ACT government and the Natural Heritage Trust and delivered by Greening Australia gives priority to projects that reinforce the connectivity of wildlife corridors and native vegetation. The management
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