Environment conservation in jeopardy - ADI site symptomatic of wider malaise

The Public Service Association of NSW welcomed today’s exposé of the funding shortfall for a nature park on the former ADI site at St Mary’s as a stark illustration of the funding crisis in the Department of Environment and Conservation.

The Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) includes the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), the Environmental Protection Authority and the Royal Botanic Gardens.

NSW Treasurer, Michael Eagan, announced two weeks ago in his mini-budget that DEC's budget has been slashed by $20 million, and it has been told to raise an additional $14 million in revenue and charges.

The Department's Director General last week announced that 300 jobs are to go. This amounts to a 10% cut in the workforce.

"It's not just at the ADI site in St Marys that the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the rest of the Department of Environment and Conservation is being given millions of dollars too little to care for wildlife and the environment" said John Cahill, General Secretary of the Public Service Association (PSA).

"There are no bottles of Bollinger or diamond necklaces in this Department. Staff are lucky if they get a glass of decent water.

"Many parts of NSW, as well as the ADI site at St Marys, are untouched areas of beauty which the NPWS is charged with protecting. But with what?"

In the last five years the area of land managed by NPWS has grown by 30 percent. Staff and unions say that parks and reserves in NSW can no longer be fully protected and managed safely.