Publications

Operation of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

• Download the Annual Report as a PDF file
• Introduction
• Overview
• 1. Protecting environment and heritage
• 2. Conserving biodiversity
• 3. Managing heritage and protecting significant areas
• 4. Monitoring and compliance
• 5. Reporting
• Appendix 1 - Statistics on the Operation of the Act
• Appendix 2 - Publications
• Appendix 3 - Functions and membership of advisory committees under the Act
• Appendix 4 - Compliance with timeframes

Introduction

This report describes the operation of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) from 1 July 2003 to 30 June 2004. This is the fourth annual report on the operation of the EPBC Act as required by section 516.

As in previous years, this report follows a format allowing examination of the operation of the EPBC Act against the key priorities in implementing the Act. These priorities are:

• ensuring a clear role for the Australian Government in protecting matters of national environmental significance (addressed in Part 1.1 of this report);
• providing more effective protection of the environment in proposals involving the Australian Government (Part 1.2);
• increasing intergovernmental cooperation and reducing duplication (Part 1.3);
• providing a more efficient, timely and effective assessment and approval process with greater certainty (Part 1.4);
• increasing transparency and public awareness (Part 1.5);
• taking an integrated approach to conserving biodiversity (Part 2);
• managing heritage and protecting significant areas (Part 3); and
• developing an improved monitoring and compliance regime (Part 4).