Media Release (Image: Feral cat with Rosella, Brisbane City Council CC BY 2.0)
The Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) are seeking to manipulate the current reform of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act by lobbying for the introduction of “third party enforcement” provisions. The QCC recently stated to its members that Government agencies are not on the ground like environmental groups are, so local communities need to be able to act when our species are being harmed.
Rural and regional Queenslanders are fed up with the increasing regulatory burden and loss of rights being forced on them and we certainly will not stand by and see environmental vigilante squads operating contrary to our and what should be, the rule of law. ‘Third party enforcement has the potential to be the equivalent of creating uncontrolled and unaccountable environmental militia. Any enforcement must be based on legislation passed by parliamentarians elected by the people and administrated in a consistent professional manner by properly trained officers’, said Mr Willmott Chair of PRA.
QCC states that “the results are clear, our current laws are fundamentally failing, and projects that put the animals we love at risk keep getting approved.”
“It is a pity QCC and its members groups are not on the ground a little more to open their eyes to what is really happening in the environment. If they had their finger on the pulse of nature, they would see the key drivers decimating nature. The greatest threat as identified by the Threatened Species Action Plan are the invasive species especially feral cats and foxes. A rapidly emerging threat is the unchecked industrialisation of our rural and regional landscapes for wind and solar factories which QCC champions at the potential risk of driving some native species to the brink of extinction,’ said Mr Willmott.
At the State level, there are full environmental protections, backed by significant penalties. For QCC to imply that there is a void of environmental protection without a supercharge mutation of the Federal EPBC Act away from its original purpose, is greatly misleading.
QCC’s continued push for another layer of regulation whilst supporting the wholesale destruction of our natural landscapes via industrial scaled renewables demonstrates how out of touch these environmental activist groups have become.
‘It is time we saw through these fake greens hell bent on increasing the regulatory burden on society whilst painting those people that are actively out in the landscape fighting to protect nature from the real threats. These are the people we should be empowering not these fake activists’ groups who mirror the policy of the government all while stating they are independent’.
‘We all need to start to calling out this fake green, toxic behaviour, if allow it to continue it will truly be the end of the natural environment,’ said Mr Willmott.
Jim Willmott | PRA Chairman | M: 0439 451 473 | E: pra1@bigpond.net.au