Offsets for sensitive land

Developers will be able to bulldoze environmentally sensitive land in Sydney if they pay to protect equivalent land elsewhere under a scheme that puts a dollar value on animals and plants.

New South Wales Environment Minister Frank Sartor was to yesterday announce the first of the state's highly controversial "BioBank" sites with the government purchase of 80ha of grassland near Camden as a permanent conservation reserve, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The offset purchase marks a new era in environmental management and is the first step in a plan to secure some of the surviving pockets of building land in western Sydney for the construction of 180,000 houses in 40 years.

"It is the first of many BioBanking agreements," Sartor said, adding that a further 37 were close to being finalised.

The Government is confident the scheme will lead to the permanent salvation of many sensitive bushland sites and that development will mainly be on land that is already degraded.

The scheme was introduced in 2006 amid a storm of criticism from environment groups, the Greens and some in the opposition.

- AAP