This is the fourth report in a series, Monitoring Victoria’s Environmental Laws.
This report investigates how effectively the Department of Sustainability and Environment, together with responsible authorities, are implementing and enforcing Victoria’s native vegetation clearance controls.
It finds that, while clearing controls in Victoria provide a robust system for the protection and management of native vegetation, they are being poorly implemented and enforced, leading to ongoing losses in native vegetation extent and quality. In particular, important requirements to avoid and minimise clearing are regularly being passed over in favour of offsetting; enforcement activity is significantly underutilised and largely reactive; and clearance data is incomplete and in large part unavailable to the public. The report makes a number of recommendations for improvement.
View report A Framework for Action? (PDF, 823KB)
About this report series
The Monitoring Victoria’s Environmental Laws reports examine the extent and effectiveness of government’s implementation and enforcement of key environmental laws in Victoria.
We have witnessed how Victoria’s environmental laws are implemented and enforced for over 20 years through our advice to and representation of the community on environmental law issues. Over that time we have become aware of countless environmental laws that are in force but are not effectively used by government to protect or improve the environment. These reports use all publicly available data on each Act to expose the lack of implementation and enforcement of key environmental laws.
Previous reports in this series have reviewed the implementation and enforcement of the Environment Protection Act, the Environmental Effects Act, and the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act and the Wildlife Act.
View report #1: Walking the Talk? (PDF, 446KB)
View report #2: Rigour or Rubber Stamp? (PDF, 475KB)
View report #3: Where's the Guarantee? (PDF, 563KB)
Read our Director of Advocacy and Research’s blog post on the motivation behind these reports and the difficulties the EDO had in accessing data from the government to compile the reports.