A Local Council Having Oversight Over The Great Barrier Reef? Could Happen With Hunts One-Stop-Shops.... A new study of our states and territories by the Places You Love alliance - which includes WWF, the Wilderness Society and the Australian Conservation Foundation - has found that there are huge gaps in the capability of these governments to protect threatened species and world heritage sites, severely undermining the case for devolving environmental powers to them. “None of them is currently up to the job of properly protecting threatened species and ecosystems if they were handed the responsibility by the federal government.” Says Kelly O’Shanassy, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation. According to the study, none of the states of territories have laws which meet the federal requirements to protect threatened species and none of the states or territories have the same list of threatened species as the federal government. “The lack of outside independent oversight also raises concerns that the states will be assessing projects that they benefit from financially.” Said O’Shanassy, who added that once the handover is complete the states can devolve the responsibility even further to local government - raising the possibility of councils having oversight of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu. “The states can’t do it on their own, that’s why we need that level of federal oversight for the really special places that Australians love.” She said. “If these flawed one-stop-shops are set up, we’ll have coal developments and mines where they shouldn’t be, it’ll impact the Great Barrier Reef and we’ll see world heritage areas in Tasmania logged. This is a fundamental failing, a severe weakening of the protection of our natural areas.” theguardian/world/2014/sep/06/states-not-able-to-protect-threatened-species-and-world-heritage-sites-says-report
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 07:55:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015