Fears habitat at risk amid planning code change

THE masked owl, swift parrot and eastern quoll will come under greater threat as a result of the new statewide planning scheme’s weaker biodiversity code, environmentalists warn.

Biodiversity expert Nick Fitzgerald urges caution about the adoption of planning reforms that may jeopardise plant and animal species. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

THE masked owl, swift parrot and eastern quoll will come under greater threat as a result of the new statewide planning scheme’s weaker biodiversity code, environmentalists warn.

Green groups say the proposed Natural Assets Code will be a watered-down version of the current Biodiversity Code.

Only development on currently recognised threatened vegetation will trigger an environmental assessment, leaving the habitats of threatened species at risk, they say.

The Wilderness Society has produced a report mapping priority areas for biodiversity conservation, drawing attention to habitats on private, forestry and Crown lands.

“If it’s not a threatened vegetation type, regardless of what other values it’s got, it doesn’t necessarily rate,” report author Nick Fitzgerald said.

“There’s a lot of stuff that will fall through the cracks if it’s not something that’s already recognised as a threatened community at the statewide level.”

Mr Fitzgerald, a University of Tasmania PhD candidate in ecology, said rare plant species were at risk on agricultural lands in the Midlands, the southern forests bordering the World Heritage Area, the far North-West and the East Coast.

He said that would have an adverse impact on several endangered species.

“Species like the masked owl that relies on older, larger trees which are being incrementally lost from agricultural landscapes,” he said.

The new code should refer to “priority habitat” rather than “priority vegetation”, the Wilderness Society argues.

Its report is more comprehensive than available government data, it says, and will be offered to councils to use.

Two have already approached the organisation to consider using the document.

“The best possible information should be incorporated into this planning scheme,” the Wilderness Society’s Vica Bayley said.

The new concerns about the statewide planning scheme follow revelations last week by the Sunday Tasmanian of fears over urban development.

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The Liberal State Government aims to have a new Tasmanian Planning Scheme in place by the end of next year.

“The Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment provides comprehensive spatial data on natural values from all land areas through the LIST, Natural Values Atlas and TasVeg,” a Government spokesman said.

“These data sets are routinely updated as new information becomes available, and this will continue.”

Originally published as Fears habitat at risk amid planning code change