“Planning professionals and conservationists alike have mixed feelings about the ability of biodiversity offsets as a mechanism to reverse or slow the decline in biodiversity that plagues Australia.
In launching the Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Biodiversity Offsets Scheme) Bill 2024, now law in NSW, Environment Minister Penny Sharpe MLC said:
“Biodiversity in New South Wales is in crisis. Half of the threatened species currently listed are on track to extinction within the next 100 years …Our landscapes are a shadow of their former selves” and “Half the bioregions in New South Wales have less than one-third of their original ecological capacity remaining.”
A speaker panel of ecologists, environmental lawyers and community members will address the question: Are biodiversity offsets driving species loss, or are they part of the solution?
A screening of the feature documentary Black Hole is an optional side-event, free to the public, on 7:30PM Friday, 21st February at Cinema 2, The Crossing Theatre. Reservations are essential.