Opposition environment spokeswoman Peta Seaton has praised the efforts of the New South Wales Farmers Association, Greening Australia, the Worldwide Fund for Nature and the Nature Conservation Council when she indicated Opposition support for their visionary bill.

Ms Seaton said the combined effort of those groups was a ground breaking initiative in developing the Bill which will make a great contribution to improving conservation outcomes and preventing land clearing in sensitive areas.

Ms Seaton said the Carr Government had clearly been reading and agreeing with the thrust of her draft conservation policy discussion paper which promoted the adoption of conservation trusts such as this.

“I’m glad they’ve adopted my policy proposal,” Ms Seaton said.

“The model in this Bill is a great first step, but the Carr Government is ignoring the potential to harness the enormous opportunities already proved in the United States where private conservation trusts are nearly matching the national park estate in conserved areas through Private Conservation Trusts.

“With 1100 private conservation trusts in the USA, huge areas of ecologically valuable land are being bought, protected, and either managed or on-sold with protection to ensure the conservation values area retained.

“In a recent example two Hawaiian islands were bought by the Nature Conservancy for conservation purposes, through a private trust.”

Ms Seaton said experts such as Dr Mike Archer at the Australian Museum and the CSIRO are recommending that our conserved areas need to be around 20-30% of our NSW landmass, and include a broad representation of our habitat types. National parks occupy only seven per cent of our state’s landmass.