On the final sitting day of 2024, the NSW Parliament passed the Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Biodiversity Offsets Scheme) Bill 2024 (Offsets Amendment Bill) – signalling the first steps in the Minns Government’s long-awaited biodiversity conservation reforms.  

The NSW Government’s Plan for Nature, released earlier this year, offers some of the most positive reforms to the management of nature in NSW in more than a decade. The Offsets Amendment Bill began the long-promised task of fixing the NSW biodiversity offsets system, with further reform to that scheme and broader implementation of the NSW Plan for Nature expected to continue in 2025.  

As 2024 wraps up, we also await important and long-overdue announcements on other key work in the Environment portfolio, including finalisation of the revised NSW Koala Strategy, a new NSW Forestry Industry Action Plan, and gazetting of the Great Koala National Park. 

Here’s a quick snapshot of the changes made by the Offsets Amendment Bill, and what we expect to see next as the Government pushes ahead with ongoing implementation of the NSW Plan for Nature. 

Changes to the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme 

The Offsets Amendment Bill makes a number of important changes to the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme (BOS). In particular, the Bill: 

  • signals a transition of the BOS to ‘net positive’ – the Bill requires the NSW Environment Minister to develop a strategy to transition the BOS to deliver net positive biodiversity outcomes;  
  • better embeds the ‘mitigation hierarchy’ (i.e. avoid, minimise impacts and as a last resort, offset impacts) into law;  
  • makes changes to the way money is paid into and spent from the Biodiversity Conservation Fund (BCF), as a means of satisfying offsets obligations;   
  • creates new requirements for Environment Minister concurrence for reducing biodiversity credit requirements for State significant development and infrastructure; and 
  • introduces new public registers to increase transparency, including in relation to decisions on serious and irreversible impacts, measures for avoiding and minimising impacts on biodiversity values, approved offsets obligations and progress towards meeting these obligations, and orders made by the Minister to exempt particular development applications from the BOS. 

The Bill allows for new key policy settings to be set by the Regulations (e.g. in relation to low impact development that will be exempt from the BOS, and in relation to limiting payments into the BCF); and there will be a further opportunity for stakeholder engagement on these key issues. 

While the changes made by the Bill are important steps to improving the BOS, as flagged in EDO’s submission to the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the Bill, the changes do not go far enough to address key criticisms of the BOS. In particular, the Bill does not set thresholds for where offsets should not be used, or reinstate genuine like-for-like offsetting requirements with strict limits on the use of variations rules and indirect offsets (although we acknowledge improvements made to Bill during Committee debate to limit the use of variation rules to the Biodiversity Conservation Trust). And while the Bill does not restrict or phase out the option to acquit offset liabilities by making a payment to the Biodiversity Conservation Fund (as recommended by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal), it does introduce a new provision that would allow the Regulation to prescribe circumstances where an offset obligation could not be satisfied by payment into the BCF.   

EDO will continue to engage with the NSW Government on ways to further strengthen the NSW BOS so that it delivers genuine improvements for biodiversity in NSW. 

Implementing the NSW Plan for Nature 

The NSW Plan for Nature sets out a wide range of actions that the NSW Government will undertake in response to the 5-year statutory reviews of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (BC Act) (the Henry Review) and Part 5A of the Local Land Services Act 2013. This includes:  

  • Developing and implementing a NSW Nature Strategy; 
  • Amending and strengthening the BC Act, and revising other relevant legislation to strengthen biodiversity outcomes; 
  • Modernising the application of Ecologically Sustainable Development; 
  • Identifying and mapping areas of high biodiversity value; 
  • Improving regional planning and strategic land-use planning; 
  • Upgrading biodiversity data gathering and management 
  • Improved reporting on government biodiversity impacts and outcomes; 
  • Improving species and ecosystem programs; 
  • Expanding private land conservation initiatives; and 
  • Strengthening protections in rural land-clearing codes. 

This is an ambitious reform agenda which involves multi-faceted areas of work. We understand that implementation of the NSW Plan for Nature will continue in stages – with various elements being led by different parts of Government, with varying implementation processes and timeframes. Some changes will require further legislative changes, whereas other changes can be implemented through updated policies, programs or systems.  

The Government has committed to engage relevant stakeholders across the various areas of work and we expect the bulk of this work to take place in 2025. It will be a busy year for biodiversity and land management stakeholders engaging with the NSW Government as it undertakes this work; but the task is critical. The Henry Review was clear that the task of reversing ongoing environmental decline and repairing nature in this State was urgent and a necessity.    

Other key initiatives 

In addition to its NSW Plan for Nature, the NSW Government is working on several other important strategies which will also drive conservation outcomes in NSW: 

  • NSW Koala Strategy: The Government is reviewing and updating the NSW Koala Strategy. It hosted the NSW Koala Summit in March 2024 and concurrently sought feedback on a Discussion Paper. While koalas remain at risk of further decline, including from increases in car strikes and ongoing logging of koala habitat, both stakeholders and endangered koalas wait for the Government to finalise its review, release the updated strategy and get to work taking real action to save koalas. EDO’s submission on the Discussion Paper is available here. 
  • NSW Forestry Industry Action Plan: The NSW Government has appointed an Independent Forestry Panel to lead consultation on current and future forestry operations in NSW, ahead of the NSW Government developing its Forestry Industry Action Plan. EDO has long argued that the existing regulatory framework for native forestry in NSW is not achieving ecologically sustainable native forestry operations, and will not in the future, unless there is immediate and effective regulatory reform. Our submission to the Independent Forestry Panel recommends, amongst other things, that the Action Plan must engage with, and incorporate, mechanisms to harness the beneficial non-forestry values of NSW native forests. 
  • National parks: While the NSW Government has committed to creating the Great Koala National Park on the mid-North coast of NSW, progress towards realising that commitment has been slow.  We also understand the Government is reviewing the existing 15+ year old National Parks Establishment Plan. This work will be important to contributing to global and domestic goals of conserving 30% of Australia’s land by 2030. 

Each of these initiatives must complement the work set out in the NSW Plan for Nature and drive the Government’s ambition to actively turn around biodiversity loss and restore habitats and biodiversity and leave nature better off than we found it. 

2025 will be a big year for biodiversity reform in NSW and EDO is ready to roll up its sleeves and work with Government and stakeholders to create the significant shift needed in our policy and regulatory frameworks to reverse decline, restore ecosystems and create a world where nature thrives.