The Hon. Minister for the Environment Albert Jacob recently released the WA Environmental Offset Guidelines. These complement the WA Environmental Offsets Policy that has been in place from 2011. The guidelines relate to environmental offsets under the Environmental Protection Act 1986 for:
- Projects formally assessed by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).
- Native Clearing Permits assessed either by the Department of Environment Regulation (DER) or the Department of Mines and Petroleum (DMP).
Offsets are only required where residual impacts of a proposed project are still determined to be significant.
During environmental impact assessment or Clearing Permit processes, applicants will need to demonstrate how the risk based hierarchy (avoid, minimise, rehabilitate and offset) is applied to reduce potential impacts of the proposed project on the environment. If significant residual impacts exist, the residual impact significance model should be used to assess a project.
More details are available at http://www.der.wa.gov.au/your-environment/offsets, or call us on (08) 9226 3166 if you want to find out more about the revised Offset policy.