Page 1630 - Week 05 - Thursday, 15 May 2014
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Questions without notice taken on notice
Environment—biodiversity offsets policy
Mr Rattenbury (in reply to a question and a supplementary question by Ms Lawder on Wednesday, 7 May 2014): I can only provide a response in relation to the environmental offset sites that are managed by the Territory and Municipal Services (TAMS) Directorate. The Directorate is responsible for implementing environmental offsets that are on land managed by TAMS. Information on these sites is available at the following links on the TAMS website.
http://www.tams.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/575193/
Environmental-Offsets-Map.pdf
http://www.tams.act.gov.au/parks-recreation/parks_and_reserves/canberra_nature_park
The Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate is responsible for the broader ACT Government offset policy.
As environmental offsets are designed to bring long term biodiversity outcomes, an analysis on the delivery of these outcomes cannot yet be completed as the TAMS managed offsets have only been in place for a relative short period of time.
However, TAMS does manage environmental offsets in accordance with the conditions outlined in the Commonwealth’s approval decision for the associated development. The approval decision requires offsets to be managed for long term biodiversity outcomes and often includes a condition to monitor the matters of national environmental significance. Depending on the offset site, this relates to:
o the quality and/or extent of threatened species habitat;
o the quality and/or extent of a threatened ecological community (or communities); and / or
o a surveyed population count for a threatened species.
Offset Management Plans (OMP) are developed for all direct offsets as stipulated in the approval condition for a development. An OMP guides the management of the offset site and outlines specific tasks to achieve long term biodiversity outcomes.
Annual reports are submitted to the Commonwealth to demonstrate compliance with the approval decision and implementation of the OMP. As an example TAMS has placed an annual report for the Ngunnawal 2C Offset on its website, and can be found at http://www.tams.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/455373/Bonner-4-East-Environmental-Offset-Report-2012-13.pdf.
Environment—biodiversity offsets policy
Mr Rattenbury (in reply to a supplementary question by Mr Coe on Wednesday, 7 May 2014): The Territory and Municipal Services (TAMS) Directorate is currently updating its website with information on the environmental offsets sites that the
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