SAVE Perth Hills is holding a rally next month to call on the federal government to revoke the environmental approval given in September last year for North Stoneville SP34.

There has been a lot of criticism of federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s decision to give environmental approval for the proposal in September last year including from the Shire of Mundaring, Save Perth Hills (SPH), WA Senator Linda Reynolds along with Liberal candidates Adam Hort (Kalamunda) and Matt Moran (Bullwinkel).

According to Satterley’s construction environmental management plan May 15, 2024 the North Stoneville structure plan has areas of public open space including conservation of Aboriginal heritage values and a 193ha conservation area.

But the proposed development site is in the distribution range of all three species of black cockatoo – two listed as endangered and one listed as vulnerable.

This week Save Perth Hills said the rally would call on Ms Plibersek, to revoke Satterley’s environmental approval to bulldoze “60,000” Stoneville trees and endangered black cockatoo habitat, and instead, protect the hills’ biodiverse environment and increasingly bushfire prone community.

In Environment minister’s approval ties in habitat offsets Ms Plibersek said her approval of the development only related to the project’s effects on matters of national environmental significance.

Ms Plibersek said of national environmental significance in structure plan 34 were the Carnaby’s black cockatoo, Baudin’s black cockatoo, the forest red-tailed cockatoo and the chuditch.

“My department accepted that clearing associated with the development would clear habitat that could potentially be used by these species, however this could be managed by the offsets of other habitat within the area,’’ she said.

“This is the standard approach to the approval of matters under federal environment law.’’

SPH said Satterley’s proposed offset site was 184 km away from Stoneville, in the wheatbelt wilderness of Williams and called the long environmental approval unprecedented.

“A 110-year environmental approval, under an Act the federal government itself describes as ‘outdated’, and that involves bulldozing tens of thousands of healthy trees that provide crucial habitat for a species on the brink of extinction due to habitat loss, is deplorable,” SPH chair Peter Brazier said.

The Shire of Mundaring called on Ms Plibersek to reconsider the approval of the proposed development with President Paige McNeil saying the shire was disappointed with the decision that was based on environmental surveys undertaken seven years ago.

Ms McNeil said they believed serious consideration had to be given to the current condition of the forest that had been impacted by the cumulative environmental fall out of the Wooroloo 2021 bushfire and the 2022-23 summer drought.

Minister’s North Stoneville environmental consideration reported on a letter sent on December 23 on behalf of Ms Plibersek to Liberal candidate for Bullwinkel Matt Moran after he requested the minister reconsider the decision to approve the North Stoneville environmental aspects of the the proposed townsite development.

“Your request for the approval to be revoked under section 145(2)(b) of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC) has been received and is currently being considered,’’ the letter said.

The SPH rally will be held on Sunday, February 23.

SPH said political candidates from all major state and federal parties had been invited.