Clause 6.5 of the Biodiversity Conservation Regulation 2017 (NSW) provides for ancillary rules to support the interpretation and application of the offset rules.
Biodiversity conservation actions
A person with an obligation to retire biodiversity credits can, under certain circumstances, fund biodiversity conservation actions to offset their impacts under the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme.
The Ancillary rules: Biodiversity conservation actions outline the requirements to use biodiversity conservation actions as an offset. It includes:
- a list of approved actions
- information about approvals
- information about implementation
- costs or funding required.
Download Ancillary rules: Biodiversity conservation actions [PDF 69KB].
Variation rules: excluded threatened species and ecological communities
Approvals granted from 7 March 2025 onwards cannot use the variation rules.
Prior to 7 March 2025 approval to use the variation rules could be provided by the decision maker at the time of project approval through conditions of approval or consent.
The Ancillary rules: Impacts on threatened species and ecological communities excluded the use of variation rules to offset impacts on critically endangered species or ecological communities listed under the:
- Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (NSW)
- Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth).
Download Ancillary rules: Impacts on threatened species and ecological communities [PDF 38KB].
Variation rules: reasonable steps to seek like-for-like biodiversity credits
Approvals granted from 7 March 2025 onwards cannot use the variation rules.
Prior to 7 March 2025 approval to use the variation rules could be provided by the decision maker at the time of project approval through conditions of approval or consent.
Before applying the variation rules, an applicant was required to undertake reasonable steps to demonstrate that like-for-like credits were not available.
The Ancillary rules: Reasonable steps to seek like-for-like biodiversity credits for the purpose of applying the variation rules sets out the steps and documentation required to apply to use variation rules.