EARTH FIRST | What's our vision for the region's crown land?

It is the first attempt to develop a plan for the vast areas of Crown land that make up 42 percent of the state.

And, as the strategic plan states, the areas are currently used for "leased grazing, travelling stock reserves, parks, nature reserves, roads, cemeteries, showgrounds, campgrounds, industrial sites, also providing essential space for business, tourism, recreation, wellbeing and biodiversity".

Given the challenges our community has had to face this year, it is important that we make use of Crown Land to offset the ravages brought about by the likes of drought, bushfires, climate change and COVID-19.

The plan supports this use of Crown land through the stated outcome of "enabling job growth, commercial opportunities and sustainable economic progress in regional and rural NSW".

Recent COVID lockdowns have made our communities more aware of the value of urban greenspace as a place for recreation and a respite from enforced self isolation.

It is therefore commendable that included in the outcomes of the document is to encourage the expansion of the use of Crown land that is greenspace, and by doing so, boost well being and mental health through interaction with nature and the outdoors.

There has been growing awareness of the need to focus on a post COVID recovery that is green.

Use of Crown land for renewable energy projects and alternatives to motor transport can be part of such a program.

Such use is implied through the stated outcome in the document to use Crown land for climate resilience.

However, there is a glaring omission.

There is no outcome that expressly supports the protection of areas of unique biodiversity.

There are parcels of Crown land in New South Wales that contain unique natural habitats and ecosystems.

The drought, recent bushfires and our overly generous land clearing laws have caused these special places to become increasingly rare.

Australia already has the worst species extinction record on the planet.

The Plan in its present form will do little to help the survival of what remains.

The deadline for submissions was Thursday, August 20.

Calls have been made for an outcome advocating the protection and quarantining of our special remnants of Crown land that have high environmental value and are essential for species and ecosystem survival.

Let us hope they are heeded.