Making Sense of Koala Sepp 2021 for Local Government (Webinar)

You are invited to a webinar at 3:30pm on Thursday 22nd of April 2021 informing community members, local government councillors and staff about how changes underway with SEPPs and LEPs will affect them and their koala populations.

Our Panel of Expert Presenters will be:


Dailan Pugh OAM North East Forest Alliance President	Cr Dominic King (Mayor of Bellingen Shire)	Cerin Loane \| Senior Solicitor - Systemic Change Team - Biodiversity \| EDO	Stephen Phillips (B.Sc. (Hons); Ph.D.) - Principal Research Associate Biolink Ecological Consultants

As you are aware there are a lot of changes happening around Koala SEPPs and LEPs at the moment.

Councils will have to implement 2 Koala SEPPs, with the rebadged SEPP 44 still applying to 90% of north coast forests.
New survey requirements are explicit, requiring detailed Plant Community Type mapping as well as systematic Koala surveys, while allowing any landholders to challenge maps and require resurveys at Council's cost, making preparation of KPoMs even more expensive.
The Minister for Planning intends to issue a new section 9.1 direction to ensure that only the Minister, and not councils, will be empowered to rezone land used for primary production to an environmental zone, which is in part intended to implement his commitment to the Nationals that core Koala habitat will not be rezoned as an environment zone.
Dual consent provisions for PNF in local environmental plans will be removed, presumably meaning that PNF will over-ride environmental zones and TPOs.
A new PNF Code of Practice for logging is intended to be released in April, which is likely to allow an increase in logging intensity and have new rules for Koalas.

This webinar will inform community members, councillors & staff of these changes, discuss their implications, and equip you to put motions to your Councils for improvements.