This is truely terrifying.....
#stopborumbahydro #qldhydro #saveyabbacreek #
Introduction
Areas of high environmental value (for example habitat for vulnerable species) sometimes coincide with sites of particular value to industry, such as the presence of natural resources or proximity to infrastructure. Environmental offsets (offsets) may be used to counterbalance significant residual impacts from particular activities on particular matters of national, state or local environmental significance.
Under a number of existing Queensland laws, offsets may be required for certain activities where there is an unavoidable impact on significant environmental values. To counterbalance this loss, offsets, which include improvement and protection of alternative sites and/or actions that improve environmental viability, can provide a conservation outcome that is equivalent to the environmental value being lost at the impact site.
The mitigation hierarchy ‘avoid - mitigate - offset’ applies to prescribed activities that impact prescribed environmental matters. This means that in designing or planning the prescribed activity, impacts on prescribed environmental matters should, in the first instance, be avoided wherever possible. For impacts that cannot be avoided, the extent of those impacts should be carefully managed and mitigated to the greatest possible extent.
These measures can reduce and, in some cases, remove the need for offsets. However, if there is still a significant impact to a prescribed environmental matter then an offset may be required. In cases where the impacted prescribed environmental matter cannot be offset, the prescribed activity might not be approved.
If an administering agency decides to impose an offset condition on an authority, the offset must be delivered in accordance with the Queensland environmental offsets framework established under the Environmental Offsets Act 2014, Environmental Offsets Regulation 2014 and this policy.
#protecttheplatypus #kabibonyidjha #votenotothevoice
