SUBMISSION 012

SUBMISSION BY COBAR VEGETATION MANAGEMENT

COMMITTEE TO THE NATIVE VEGETATION FRAMEWORK

REVIEW TASK GROUP

The Cobar Vegetation Management Committee [the Committee] represents landholders in the Cobar district of the Cobar Peneplain Bioregion area whose properties are heavily invaded by native shrub species [INS].

These shrub species have proliferated in the last 120 – 140 years and have particularly become a problem since the 1950s.

The Committee does not have any detailed comments on the discussion relating to the framework but primarily wishes to make a number of points for consideration by the review group in relation to the acceptance of INS control and removal as an enhancing action in relation to native vegetation condition and productivity.

Native shrub invasion is a major problem in the Cobar Peneplain Bioregion and other areas of New South Wales, including the western river floodplains and parts of the Tablelands.

The Committee is of the view that in achieving the aims of Goals 1 and 2 of the Framework there is a need to recognize the extent of degradation of native vegetation communities that is associated with INS proliferation.

It has been the Committee’s view that in order to achieve an improvement in native vegetation condition and productivity it should be recognized at the Federal and State level that INS removal and prevention of establishment as high priority land management actions that should be encouraged rather than hindered by inflexible State and Federal statutes and regulations.

Many of these statutes and regulations fail to recognize that control actions are not set to rigid timetables. In the real world such actions are required not at 3, 5 or 10 year intervals [as specified in many approvals for management actions] but closely following on germination events and high growth periods.

On another point the Committee wishes to draw attention to the need for Federal and State Governments to accept that in the interests of national productivity, some native vegetation communities will need to be removed to allow mining of resources that are essential to maintain appropriate employment levels, standards of living and to balance the national accounts.

Such removal should always be balanced by appropriate offsets that contribute to the condition and extent of native vegetation aims of Goals 1 and 2.

Finally, the Committee wishes to comment on the apparent dichotomy in standards adopted by some tiers of government that allow the destruction of endangered native communities in the more highly developed areas for urban and industrial expansion while at the same time rigorously pursuing those who undertake activities with similar outcomes elsewhere.

Geoff Cunningham

For Stuart Mosely

Chair

Cobar Vegetation Management Committee

Cobar NSW

23rd March, 2010

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SUBMISSION ON AUSTRALIA’S NATIVE VEGETATION FRAMEWORK – COBAR VEGETATION MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE – MARCH, 2010