statements under the National Parks and Wildlife Act
Schaffer Corporation Ltd v Hawkesbury City Council (1992) referred to.
(2) Like an environmental impact statement a fauna impact statement is not the decision but
rather a tool to be used in the decision making and may be supplemented by further information.
(3) In the circumstances of the present matter the omission to advertise certain further information
which had been provided to supplement the fauna impact statement did not cause the fauna
impact statement to be legally inadequate, or otherwise fatally flaw the decision making process.
.
(4) In the present matter the fauna impact statement included a reasonably thorough discussion of
the significant issues and likely faunal consequences and was not legally inadequate.
(5) The "precautionary principle", under which, if there are threats of serious or irreversible
environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for
postponing measures to prevent environmental damage, is not an extraneous consideration for the
purposes of Pt 7 (Fauna) of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.
(6) A licence to take or kill endangered fauna should not in most circumstances be "general" in its
coverage of endangered species but should specify the species which it permits to be taken.
(7) The period of a licence to take or kill endangered fauna should be confined, so far as
reasonable, because of possible changes in the physical environment and state of scientific
knowledge.
(8) In the present matter the purely economic analysis of the respective alternative road routes
had resulted in a failure to include natural values in the evaluating balance.
(9) Upon examination of all of the evidence the Court could not be satisfied that a licence under
S. 120 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 to take or kill endangered fauna should be
granted to the Council in the present matter.
APPEAL
"This was an objector appeal under S. 92c of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 against
the granting of a licence under s 120 of that Act to take or kill endangered fauna. The facts are set
out in the judgment.
I J Dodd (solicitor), for the applicant.
B J Preston, for the respondent.
J J Webster, for the second respondent (the Council)
Judgment reserved
23 rd November 1993
STEIN J.