Be wary of environmental offsets, say Greens

Media Release, 10 July 2007

If not handled properly, environmental offsets could to corrupt the State’s environmental approvals process, say the Greens.

Yesterday, the EPA recommended that Woodside's Pluto project could be allowed to proceed provided a 'substantive offset package' is offered.

Greens MLC Giz Watson said that this was a good example of the dangers offsets posed.

"In this case, the use of environmental offsets was used to justify a project that was in breach of the EPA's objectives for the marine environment", Ms Watson said.

"This illustrates the problem - environmental offsets can be used to justify environmentally unacceptable projects.

"Another big problem with offsets is that when money is given to government agencies for research this comes very close to buying them off."