Northern Territory Biodiversity Offsets Policy

Biodiversity offsets are designed to compensate for impacts on biodiversity at one site by requiring conservation or restoration activities elsewhere.

Avoiding or mitigating impacts to biodiversity is always preferred. However, when used appropriately, offsets can be a tool to help minimise environmental harm.

Policy and guidelines

The Biodiversity Offsets Policy has been developed under the Northern Territory Offsets Framework. The policy guides the design and delivery of biodiversity offsets where an offset is required under Territory legislation.

Technical guidelines are currently being developed to provide additional information on how to interpret and apply the policy requirements.

Read the policy PDF (271.8 KB) and the draft technical guidelines PDF (901.9 KB).

Stakeholder consultation

A draft policy was released for public consultation from 11 October to 14 November 2022.

Read the:

• consultation draft policy PDF (742.2 KB)
• consultation summary report PDF (337.6 KB).

The following submissions were received:

• Arid Lands Environment Centre PDF (427.3 KB)
• Association of Mining and Exploration Companies PDF (210.3 KB)
• Environment Centre NT PDF (368.7 KB)
• Environment Institute Australia and New Zealand PDF (150.1 KB)
• Environmental Defenders Office PDF (237.8 KB)
• Environmental Justice Australia PDF (222.7 KB)
• INPEX PDF (159.9 KB)
• Minerals Council of Australia NT PDF (1.3 MB)
• Northern Land Council PDF (398.7 KB)
• NT Farmers Association PDF (107.5 KB)
• Ward Keller PDF (119.6 KB)
• individual submissions (combined) PDF (870.0 KB).