Environmental primacy in Port Stephens planning
by Iain Watt, marine scientist and President EcoNetwork Port Stephens
The core principle
Environmental primacy means the environment is treated as a non-negotiable constraint within which development must be designed, not an inconvenient variable to be mitigated after the fact. Where ecological costs cannot be adequately offset, a project should not proceed, but if it does proceed it should do so in a fundamentally different form to meet ecological requirements. The precautionary principle should be applied from the outset.
This is not anti-development. It is recognition that ecological systems are the foundation on which Port Stephens’ economy is built and is not a constraint on it.
The legal obligation and framework
Ecological primacy is not optional.
The EPBC Act, NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, and the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 together create a multi-layered framework with genuine power to influence development outcomes. Environmental primacy is already a statutory obligation, and the Council planning processes should reflect that reality. However, any legal framework depends on how it is applied.
The Council planning decisions primarily operate under the EP&A Act and the Biodiversity Conservation Act which create binding obligations on Council’s planning decisions. Where development threatens significant ecological values, assessment can result in refusal, redesign, or conditions that fundamentally alter the scope of the project. The Council planning processes should be designed to reflect these obligations from the outset, not treat the environment as a hurdle to clear.
The EPBC Act is triggered by impacts on matters of national environmental significance and adds a further layer of assessment for impacts on nationally significant species, habitats, and marine environments and rests with the federal government, not Council.
These legal obligations exist whether or not Council’s planning processes are designed to reflect them, and if not, Council should urgently adopt this approach.
Why Port Stephens specifically?
Port Stephens is not a generic coastal environment. It hosts the largest Marine Park in NSW, one of NSW’s most significant koala populations, nationally significant shorebird habitat, an important and distinctive dolphin population supporting the largest dolphin watching industry in Australia, and a nature-based tourism economy worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually. These are not amenity features. They are productive assets on which property values, tourism, and community wellbeing directly depend.
Every development decision has cumulative downstream consequences for this system. That makes environmental primacy not merely desirable here, but structurally necessary.
The current problem
Development decisions in Port Stephens are currently being made without an adequate ecological baseline. For example:
- The Salamander Bay Place Plan proposed housing on endangered swamp sclerophyll forest and koala corridor.
- The Fullerton Cove Housing Strategy targets land adjacent to nationally significant migratory shorebird habitat and tidal wetlands.
- The Marine Park Operational Plan has not been substantively revised since 2010, despite dramatically increased vessel pressure on a dolphin population with no current health assessment.
In each case, the development envelope is being drawn before the ecological envelope is established. That is the inversion environmental primacy is designed to correct.
Conclusion
Council should formally adopt environmental primacy as a guiding principle in its planning framework — meaning ecological baselines are established before development yields are calculated, the precautionary principle is applied as a starting point rather than a last resort, and habitat loss is treated as a genuine constraint rather than an offset opportunity.
A Port Stephens without functioning wetlands, a healthy dolphin population, and intact coastal habitat is not a cheaper version of what exists today.
It is a fundamentally less valuable place — economically, ecologically, and as a community. Protecting the environment is protecting the economy. The discipline of putting the environment first is, in this context, the most rational planning position available.