Qld: Environment banks receive mixed reception

AAP General News (Australia)
08-17-2000
Qld: Environment banks receive mixed reception

By Ainsley Pavey

BRISBANE, Aug 17 AAP - A proposal to set up American-style environment banks in Queensland
to trade in land credits has received a lukewarm response from green groups.

However leading eco-tourism businesses have expressed interest in the concept to be
considered as part of a state cabinet submission on sustainability.

Under the scheme, developers buy credits from environment banks for degraded land in
areas where they are planning to build and agree to regenerate the land, in exchange for
developing more pristine areas.

Australian Marine Conservation Society spokesman John Dobson described the plan today
as a "little bit radical", but said the banks could work with proper management.

"I think it's good, but you've got to have pretty strict guidelines," he said.

"You can't chop down a pristine forest and say you're going to improve a degraded area
and bring it up to the same standard.

"If it's a way of achieving no net loss of further natural habitat, then any method
that achieves that ... it must be good."

Texas-based Professor Michael McCarthy outlined the scheme to environment and industry
leaders at a recent sustainable industries conference in Brisbane.

He led a research team on a field study of North Queensland's Cromity Wetlands - a
privately owned conservation area north of Townsville that is soon to be bought by a community
foundation with help from the state and federal governments.

Queensland Conservation Council campaigner Felicity Wishart said she was "inspired"

by many of Prof McCarthy's comments, but worried about the risks.

"It's better than nothing, but I don't necessarily think it is the solution," she said.

"You're saying to a company, `So if you're going to make a big development and stuff
up the environment, you have to make a contribution to the environment'."

Wilderness Society spokesman Lyndon Schneiders said the banks mighty struggle to survive
because commitment from big business and industry to funding the environment was minor
compared to the US.

"It's a good thing to look at, but it shouldn't be seen as a possible solution because
we shouldn't let the government off the hook completely," Mr Schneiders said.

Meanwhile, the environmental manager of eco-tourism business O'Reilly's Rainforest
Guest House, in Lamington National Park, said the scheme may help save threatened wildlife.

Peter O'Reilly, whose family runs bird-watching tours from a 70-room resort in the
Gold Coast hinterland, said Coxon's fig parrot might be saved if farm land in the area
was regenerated.

The parrot was almost extinct in the area, but the planting of varieties of fig trees
to provide food could be its salvation.

AAP ap/sc/ps/bwl 9

KEYWORD: CREDITS

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