“It reduces nature to a bunch of financial formulas that can never capture the true value of our unique and rapidly disappearing wildlife and bushland.”

NSW Environment Minister James Griffin said the government is committed to improving the scheme to ensure it delivers effective environmental and economic outcomes.

“Since taking on the responsibility for this scheme in December as Environment Minister, I’ve been focussed on making sure the scheme is easier to participate in, brings greater consistency to how it applies to local development, and stimulates the supply of efficiently priced biodiversity credits,” he said.

“The scheme is in its strongest position since commencement, and I appreciate the Auditor General’s acknowledgement of the work undertaken to improve the scheme to date.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment said the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme was a world-leading, rigorous and transparent scheme that aimed to ensure ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity from development, and that the government was committed to improving the scheme.

Upper house MP Justin Field said the report showed that the scheme was so poorly designed and managed that rather than protecting the environment the law was actually used by developers who could simply pay to build in crucial habitats to destroy the state’s environment.

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Field says offset schemes lock in failure because much of what is left of NSW’s key ecosystems are now so vulnerable and valuable that they simply cannot be offset by protecting land elsewhere.

“There must be red lines,” he said. “The most threatened species and habitats should not be cleared or offset.”

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