Biodiversity Banking Scheme
The conservation of our endangered animals, plants and ecosystems is one of the greatest environmental challenges facing Australia today. The key reason for the historically high extinction rate of these animals, plants and ecosystems is habitat degradation and loss, initially from over-grazing and clearing for agriculture and more recently from the clearing of native vegetation for urban development.
The NSW Government is introducing the Biodiversity Banking and Offsets Scheme (or 'BioBanking') to help address the loss of biodiversity values, including threatened species.
What is BioBanking?
BioBanking is a market-based scheme which encourages development to move away from areas with high biodiversity value while providing incentives for landowners to protect and secure these areas. The scheme provides a transparent, consistent and robust framework for assessing biodiversity values and for the long-term management of biodiversity offsets.
BioBanking enables 'biodiversity credits' to be generated by landowners who commit to enhance and protect biodiversity values on their land through a biobanking agreement. These credits can then be sold, generating funds for the management of the site. Credits can be used to counterbalance (or offset) the impacts on biodiversity values that are likely to occur as a result of development. The credits can also be sold to those seeking to invest in conservation outcomes, including philanthropic organisations and government.
A framework for the NSW BioBanking Scheme has been established under the Threatened Species Conservation Amendment (Biodiversity Banking) Act 2006 and the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) is now consulting with the community about details of the scheme (see below).
For a general guide to the scheme and how it will work, download the BioBanking Scheme Overview – biobankingoverview07528.pdf (686 kb, requires Adobe Reader)
Public consultation
DECC has consulted widely in developing the BioBanking Scheme, including with the assistance of the Ministerial Reference Group. Several important components of the BioBanking Scheme are now being released for community comment. These are the:
- Regulatory Impact Statement for the proposed Threatened Species Conservation (Biodiversity Banking) Regulation 2007
- Draft BioBanking Assessment Methodology
- Draft Compliance Assurance Strategy.
Details on each are available on the public consultation page.
Further information on the scheme
Questions and answers about BioBanking
Background publications
Before developing the scheme, DECC's predecessor, the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC), reviewed many other systems and approaches to conservation using market-based instruments. It also conducted several public consultation exercises. For more information, visit background publications.