Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (NSW)

Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 No 63

An Act relating to the conservation of biodiversity; and to repeal the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995, the Nature Conservation Trust Act 2001 and the animal and plant provisions of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.

Part 1 Preliminary

1.1 Name of Act This Act is the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016.

1.2 Commencement This Act commences on a day or days to be appointed by proclamation.

1.3 Purpose of Act The purpose of this Act is to maintain a healthy, productive and resilient environment for the greatest well-being of the community, now and into the future, consistent with the principles of ecologically sustainable development (described in section 6(2) of the Protection of the Environment Administration Act 1991), and in particular— (a) to conserve biodiversity at bioregional and State scales, and (b) to maintain the diversity and quality of ecosystems and enhance their capacity to adapt to change and provide for the needs of future generations, and (c) to improve, share and use knowledge, including local and traditional Aboriginal ecological knowledge, about biodiversity conservation, and (d) to support biodiversity conservation in the context of a changing climate, and (e) to support collating and sharing data, and monitoring and reporting on the status of biodiversity and the effectiveness of conservation actions, and (f) to assess the extinction risk of species and ecological communities, and identify key threatening processes, through an independent and rigorous scientific process, and (g) to regulate human interactions with wildlife by applying a risk-based approach, and (h) to support conservation and threat abatement action to slow the rate of biodiversity loss and conserve threatened species and ecological communities in nature, and (i) to support and guide prioritised and strategic investment in biodiversity conservation, and (j) to encourage and enable landholders to enter into voluntary agreements over land for the conservation of biodiversity, and (k) to establish a framework to avoid, minimise and offset the impacts of proposed development and land use change on biodiversity, and (l) to establish a scientific method for assessing the likely impacts on biodiversity values of proposed development and land use change, for calculating measures to offset those impacts and for assessing improvements in biodiversity values, and (m) to establish market-based conservation mechanisms through which the biodiversity impacts of development and land use change can be offset at landscape and site scales, and (n) to support public consultation and participation in biodiversity conservation and decision-making about biodiversity conservation, and (o) to make expert advice and knowledge available to assist the Minister in the administration of this Act.