Australia's faunal extinction crisis

Australia's faunal extinction crisis:

AEF Submission to Senate Environment and Communications References Committee Inquiry into Faunal Extinction

Recommendations

1. Recognise that there is no species eradication crisis in Australia;

2. Protect existing property rights to the maximum extent possible and fully compensate landholders for regulatory imposts to promote biodiversity conservation;

3. Provide for equivalent biodiversity conservation offsets when regulating the clearing of land for economic development;

4. Remove any legal impediments to innovation in biodiversity conservation on privately owned land;

5. Minimise the use of 'command and control' regulation;

6. Cease incurring needless expenditure and limitations on private land-holders to address this matter. Where any limitations of land use are sought, owners should be fully compensated from the public purse;

7. Remove the impediments to markets for biodiversity conservation, including by paying landholders for specified conservation outcomes and allowing biodiversity conservation obligations to be traded;

8. Recognise that the cost effective means of addressing the residual species eradications that are deemed likely is to do so directly by devising measures to eradicate feral predators; 

9. Consider measures that will encourage the development of “exclosures” that eliminate feral species and prevent their reinfestation;

10. Review blanket bans on exports of certain species and instead consider mechanisms including ownership vesting to allow their harvesting. Remove the legal impediments to the commercial exploitation of Australian wildlife, including its ownership, use, domestic exchange, and exportation   Read here