Biodiversity Act

South Australia’s new Biodiversity Legislation

In the lead up to the March 2022 election, the Malinauskas Government committed to developing a Biodiversity Act.

This is major reform for South Australia’s environmental law – the State has never had an Act specifically to address biodiversity protection and recovery. 

The Department for Environment and Water is tasked with developing this new Biodiversity Act. So far:

• a workshop was held in May 2023 to discuss legislative principles, and
• a Discussion Paper was released in December 2023, with comments taken until 1 March 2024.

The NCS believes this new Act should be bold, visionary and powerful.

It needs to be designed to meet the crisis of loss of our plants and wildlife head-on and should incorporate the most effective legal ways to protect and recover our biodiversity.