More than 100 farmers sign letter for stronger nature laws

The farmers are among 300 signatories to the open letter to the Prime Minister calling for beefed up protections and funding to protect and repair nature.

More than 100 farmers have signed an open letter calling on the federal government to beef-up nature laws and restrict biodiversity offsets to a “last resort”.

The Places You Love alliance of 69 conservation groups has penned the letter to the Prime Minister calling for an independent national Environment Protection Agency, to properly fund landholder habitat restoration efforts, and to recognise that biodiversity offsets are rarely effective in stopping nature decline.

The group wants biodiversity offsets to be used only as a last resort, at odds with the National Farmers’ Federation’s support for a national Biodiversity Certificates Scheme.

The peak body representing farmers said linking farmers with investors who will partner with them to invest in environmental protection was a significant step in how they protect and care for the country.

Birdlife Australia says reporting rates of the endangered rainbow bee-eater have declined 50 per cent since 2001.

But NSW cattle farmer and signatory Glenn Morris said it was false accounting.

“You’re simply reducing the amount of healthy land if you’re destroying something in one area and making emissions, but trying to offset that damage by taking (and repairing) another area,” he said.

The alliance, which includes Birdlife Australia, the Protect the Bush Alliance, the Invasive Species Council and WWF-Australia, will deliver its letter to politicians this week as debate centres on three Bills before the Senate aimed at strengthening environmental protections.

Susan Finnigan, who runs a flock of 10,000 Merino sheep in Victoria’s Western District, said she signed the letter in the hope it would send a message to the federal government that more needed to be done to protect nature and curb urban sprawl.

“I don’t like more laws, I’d like a better job done. We’re very sensitive to maintaining our biodiversity. You have to work with the government to protect what we have,” Ms Finnigan said.

The government has been negotiating with the Coalition and has flagged potentially watering down its proposed EPA model to secure the passage of the legislation, having delayed a broader package of bills designed to radically overhaul and tighten environmental laws.