80% of what we wanted - and they call this a bad Act?

• threatened species and ecological communities
• World Heritage sites
• sites covered by the international Convention on Wetlands, or Ramsar Convention
• nuclear actions
• migratory species
• the marine environment

Taking the example of World Heritage sites, under the new legislation Commonwealth assessment and approval is required for all actions that would have a significant impact on World Heritage properties. The existing World Heritage Act specifically excludes the assessment of damaging activities under current environmental impact assessment legislation - for example, the Port Hinchinbrook development has never been subject to a Commonwealth environmental assessment. Under the new legislation, this assessment would be required.

The suggestion that the Commonwealth could get around this by merely delegating approval processes to the States is conceivable, but only after the development of a management plan which is subject to a rigorous process involving two rounds of public consultation and evidence that there will be no unsustainable impacts on areas and issues identified as being of "national environmental significance" (NES). Implementation of a Management plan may be blocked by either House of Parliament if the State’s approvals process is negligent. Further, management plans can be audited by the Auditor-General, they expire after only five years and must then be reapproved. In addition, for the first time these agreements are required to adhere to minimum Commonwealth standards and operate within enforceable state legislation.

Some conservation groups have levied criticism at the Act - and its supporters - because greenhouse gas emissions have not been included on the NES list. The Commonwealth government has commenced consultation with the States with a view to adding proposed large new greenhouse gas emitters as a trigger, and WWF believes a trigger will be added soon after the Act is proclaimed.

But what of forests? Of grave concern to WWF is the fact that the legislation exempts areas covered by Regional Forest Agreements (RFA’s) from environmental impact assessment. However rather than being a backward step, this is effectively no change to the current situation.

From WWF’s perspective, the challenges faced by the conservation movement in the implementation of the new legislation are:

• to ensure that the minimum national standards to be adopted by the Commonwealth for judging proposed bilateral agreements are rigorous;
• to ensure thorough implementation of the process to conserve threatened ecological communities;
• to finalise and add a greenhouse gas emission trigger to address the threat from climate change.

Overall, WWF believes that the flaws and challenges posed by the legislation should not be considered in isolation from the positive enormous outcomes the new Act will deliver across a broader range of the most critical environmental issues.

The bottom line in 1999 is that the environmental conservation movement must remain focussed on protecting the environment while following a solution focussed working philosophy. WWF (World Wide Fund For Nature) Australia, as an organisation which works across the environmental spectrum, considers this hard fought Bill to be the most significant legislative win for Australian conservation in 25 years.