Environmental Offsets with Melanie Findlay

Audio - Environmental Offsets with Melanie Findlay

Environmental Offsets

Below is a transcript of Melanie Findlay’s interview with Aaron Stevens of 990 4RO from Monday 29 February.

Melanie:
Yeah, so we thought it would be good to get information out to Landowners. That is a bit of a passion of mine, to get the information out before things go wrong and just generally inform people about changes in legislation or opportunities because rural isn’t rural anymore in the legal world.

4RO:

Yeah, it’s all changing, isn’t it?

Melanie:

Yes, yes.

4RO:
Well, that’s great. So, Mel is going to join us regularly, give us some advice. If you have got any questions that you would like to raise, feel free to call anytime, 4922 7990, and maybe we can pass those questions onto you?

Melanie:

Yep, happy to answer questions.

4RO:

So question number one, the one we are going to address today, tell me a little bit about environmental offsets and income opportunities in that area?

Melanie:
I guess for Landowners, the opportunities exist when a developer is say going to knock down some Brigalow or some kind of habitat for an animal or something because they need to build a coal mine. Or someone in Yeppoon, for example, might be going to put up a development and knock down some kind of special tree. So what the government says is, “You have knocked down this special habitat or tree over here, you need to go find it somewhere else and manage it and save it”. So, what happens is Landowners get approached, or used to get approached by brokers, and they would be looked at from some desk in Brisbane and they would say, “Oh, there is some Brigalow here,” looking at a SatNav map or whatever and the broker would contact the Landowner and say “Hey, are you interested in providing an offset for this project?”

I guess the big change in this area of law though is we don’t need the broker anymore. So what the government has said is, are you interested in an environmental offset? You can now register in advance. So, you just lodge some forms on the Department’s website and you can say yeah, I am interested in providing an offset and the financial incentives for the offset’s pretty good. They are well above market value for land rates. And, I guess it is taking that middle man out of the job with these advanced offsets.

4RO:

So where would someone go for that sort of information?

Melanie:
There is a couple of places. So we can obviously help out with the forms. They are not that hard, so you can go on to the Department’s website or we can even give you the form numbers to download and if you think that you have a certain type of Brigalow or some kind of special regrowth, perhaps you would like to get a botanist or someone out to come have a look at it and we can also help you with consultancy in that area.

4RO:

Isn’t that good, cause I imagine that would be the toughest part. I mean, you might think that there is something worth protecting but you are not going to know until you go through the processes.

Melanie:

Yeah, there is actually mapping as well available. So certain properties of higher value for offsets are available, we just need to pull the data out to check that your property is one of those.

4RO:

Alright, if someone is after more information and would like to contact you about obtaining that information or the paperwork, what do they do?

Melanie:

They can go onto the Rees Jones website and have a look, we have written a few articles about it. Or they can give me a ring on 4927 6333. I have got a little blog as well which has got some articles specific for just Landowners that you can find through the Rees Jones website as well.

4RO:
Terrific, what’s that address?

Melanie:
www.reesjones.com.au

4RO:
Mel, a pleasure. Looking forward to catching up with you again soon.

Melanie:

Thank you.