Biodiversity Assessment Method Order 2017.

This Order establishes The NSW biodiversity offsets scheme under Part 6 of the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (BC Act). The Biodiversity Assessment Method (BAM) is established under section 6.7 of the BC Act. The BAM is established for the purpose of assessing certain impacts on threatened species and threatened ecological communities (TECs), and their habitats, and the impact on biodiversity values, where required under the BC Act, Local Land Services Act 2013 (LLS Act) or the State Environmental Planning Policy (Vegetation in Non-Rural Areas) 2017). The BAM is made by the Minister administering the BC Act by order and published on the NSW legislation website. The BAM is structured around three primary stages. Stage 1 of the BAM establishes a single consistent approach to assessing the biodiversity values on land. Under the proposed offsets scheme, this will include: a) land proposed as a development site, including for a Part 5 activity (proposed development site); b) land subject to a vegetation clearing proposal which is required to be assessed by the BAM under the LLS Act (proposed clearing site); c) land proposed to be biodiversity certified; and d) land proposed as a biodiversity stewardship site under a biodiversity stewardship agreement (proposed biodiversity stewardship site). Stage 2 provides for an impact assessment on biodiversity values where the land is a development site, clearing site or land proposed for biodiversity certification. This stage includes the guidelines and requirements that apply the avoid, minimise and offset hierarchy for assessing direct and indirect impacts. Direct impacts on biodiversity values include those related to clearing native vegetation and threatened species habitat, and impacts on biodiversity values prescribed by the Biodiversity Conservation Regulation 2017 (the BC Regulation). Stage 3 provides for the assessment of the management requirements at a proposed biodiversity stewardship site and the likely improvement in biodiversity values that are predicted to occur over time. The gain that is predicted to occur from the management actions determines the number of biodiversity credits that can be created at the site.
The BAM sets out the requirements for a repeatable and transparent assessment of terrestrial biodiversity values on land in order to: a) identify the biodiversity values on land subject to proposed development, clearing, or land in a biodiversity certification assessment area, or land proposed as a biodiversity stewardship site; b) determine the impacts of proposed development, or clearing or biodiversity certification on biodiversity values; c) quantify and describe the biodiversity credits required to offset the residual impacts of proposed development or clearing or conferral of biodiversity certification on biodiversity values; d) quantify and describe the biodiversity credits that can be created at a biodiversity stewardship site from the improvement in biodiversity values from management actions undertaken at the site. Where required to be used under NSW legislation, the BAM is used to assess terrestrial biodiversity values on a proposed development site or proposed clearing site or land proposed for biodiversity certification. It must also be used to assess the biodiversity values on land proposed to be secured under a biodiversity stewardship agreement. The terms development, development footprint and development site are also taken to include clearing, clearing footprint and clearing site respectively, except where the reference is to a small area development or a major project development. The assessment requirements set out in the BAM enable the survey and assessment effort to be scaled depending on the level of risk posed by the impact of the development, the availability and quality of existing information such as native vegetation maps, and the area of land that is being assessed. Impacts of development, clearing or certification on biodiversity values, or gains in biodiversity values at biodiversity stewardship sites are measured in biodiversity credits. There are two broad categories of classes of credit for the purposes of measuring impact or gain – ecosystem credits and species credits. The method will step through the credit class category that is created or required for certain kinds of impact or gain. Each credit is assigned attributes in accordance with Section 11.3 to determine whether a particular credit within a class is ‘like’ another credit in the same class for the purpose of applying the like for like rules and variation rules set out in the BC Regulation. . A class of credits is formed where the biodiversity credit shares the same attributes as set out in Section 11.3. Ecosystem credits have seven shared attributes. For species credits, the only shared attribute is the name of the threatened species.