NT election 2024: Greens launch biodiversity policy with a buffel bust and weed declaration promise

Ahead of the Territory election, one political party has put buffel grass back on the agenda with the launch of their latest policy.

Kaytetye-Warlpiri woman Maureen Jiyiliya Nampijinpa O'Keefe from Ali-Curung with NT Greens candidate for Braitling Asta Hill. The NT Greens launched their biodiversity policy in Alice Springs on Sunday, June 23, 2024. Picture: Gera Kazakov

The buffel fight is back in the spotlight with the NT Greens pledging to declare the grass a weed – as well as establishing biodiversity laws for the first time in the Territory.

The NT Greens launched their biodiversity policy in Alice Springs on Sunday June 23, in an event which also featured a buffel bust afterwards.

Speaking at the event were Greens candidates for Braitling and Araluen Asta Hill and Hugo Wells, alongside Arid Lands Environmental Centre policy officer Alec Vaughan and Kaytetye-Warlpiri woman Maureen Jiyiliya Nampijinpa O’Keefe from Ali-Curung.

The three central tenets of the policy include protecting the biodiversity of the Territory; establishing the “first ever” biodiversity laws in the Territory; and fixing the Territory’s “broken” water laws.

A weed declaration for buffel grass is one of the ways the NT Greens plan to protect the Territory’s biodiversity, according to the policy document.

Arid Lands Environment Centre policy officer Alex Vaughan. Picture: Gera Kazakov

The NT Greens also want to tackle Litchfield’s gamba grass threat by “urgently” increasing funding to tackle the problem, the policy document states.

First Nations ranger groups will also get a funding boost under the NT Greens, according to the policy document, which also wants to “take land clearing approval power out of the hands of big business”.

“Right now, land clearing applications are approved by the pastoral landholders, executives and lobbyists who make up the Pastoral Land Board,” the document states.

Establishing a Biodiversity Act and creating a dedicated Territory biodiversity strategy make up the second tenet of the policy.

“A Biodiversity Act would protect places like Binyabara (Lee Point), and prevent damaging large scale clearing in ecologically fragile places - like the banks of the Daly river and NT sites of conservation significance (such as Lake Woods and Mataranka Thermal Springs),” the document states.

The final tenet states the NT Greens plan to fix the Territory’s water laws includes establishing a Safe Drinking Water Act and strengthening the Water Act.

NT Greens Braitling candidate Asta Hill said as the only party that doesn’t take corporate donations the Greens were the “only party that truly backs our environment”.

“Here in the desert, water scarcity penetrates the psyche of so many Territorians. Except the major parties’,” she said.

“We can’t let Labor and the CLP sell us out.”