Time is running out for farmers in North West NSW who have pinned their hopes on an overhaul of the state's Native Vegetation Act.
The act regulates land clearing, meaning farmers must often acquire permits to manage vegetation on their own property.
It aims to prevent broad scale clearing unless it improves or maintains environmental outcomes, but there is growing unrest over the current arrangement.
Bellata farmer Rob Anderson believes the need to loosen restrictions on land clearing is becoming increasingly urgent due to economic and environmental conditions in the rural sector.
"It’s almost desperate now to get it on track, especially for people out west, they’re really in a bind because they’ve been in drought for two and a half years, they’ve got no stock and their only chance to get ahead is a fast cash crop but they’re not allowed to clear any country to do it," he explained.
“There has to be a compromise, at present the NSW legislation is purely about the environment, it has no economic or social benefit, there’s no triple bottom line and that is the issue.
“In no way are they considering the economic situation, the farmers are asked to carry the burden for the broader community, but there’s no money in conservation."
The Shooters and Fishers Party submitted a bill to parliament last month proposing changes to the law which would relax restrictions on land clearing.
While the Liberal Party has made countless promises to change the laws, both before the last election and throughout their first term, progress seems to have stalled with a vote on the bill delayed.
Mr Anderson was bitterly disappointed with the outcome.
"The fact that the conservatives started to agree with it, then at the 11th hour they just turned and voted against it, then they came up with this ridiculous suggestion of allowing us to remove one tree per year out of a cultivation paddock, I mean that’s farcical," he said
“If you’re in one acre you can remove one tree, if you’re in 10000 acres you can remove one tree, it just shows you how absolutely out of touch with it they are."
The laws surrounding native vegetation management strike a chord with many landholders who believe they have a basic right to manage their own land as they see fit.
Land clearing is thought to be at the heart of a long running dispute between government authorities and a Moree farmer who allegedly shot dead an Environmental Officer earlier this year.
A review into the state's environmental laws is ongoing with an Independent Biodiversity Legislation Review Panel appointed in June to investigate the effectiveness of the Native Vegetation Act 2003, the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995, the Nature Conservation Trust Act 2001, and parts of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.
Key questions to be addressed in the review include:
•Whether the current system is effective in encouraging landowners to generate public benefits from their land and rewarding them as environmental stewards
•Whether current mechanisms are too focused on requiring private landowners to protect ecosystem services and biodiversity at their own cost
•To what extent has the current regulatory system resulted in lost development, opportunities and/or prevented innovative land management practices
•Whether there should be an aspirational goal for biodiversity conservation
Environmental activists are weighing in on the debate heavily, remaining firmly against any relaxation of the current Native Vegetation laws.
They do, however, agree that farmers should be compensated for their conservation efforts.
Bev Smiles from the Western Conservation Alliance says the broader community benefits from valuable remnant vegetation.
“The big push is to clear land in a lot of fairly marginal areas, and there’s the possibility of getting a couple of crops off, and then the loss of soil and the loss of all those free ecosystem services that we get from native vegetation have gone forever," she said.
"We believe enough of the state has been cleared for agricultural productivity and there’s room to become more efficient on the land that’s already been cleared."
Member for Barwon, Kevin Humphries, declined to comment for this article, but the Leader of the Greens Party is speaking freely on the issue.
Senator Christine Milne believes a Biodiversity Fund is the answer.
She said a pool of money needs to be reserved to compensate landholders for conserving areas of their property.
"We have to invest in our threatened species, our landscape, our carbon in the soil, we need to be thinking about connectivity corridors for wildlife and vegetation, and helping people on the land to conserve critically endangered species, helping them to manage feral animals and the like," she said.
"If we want to restore wetlands, if we want to restore degraded forests, we’ve got to have the people to do it and look after it, and they’re the people who are actually on the land.
"The tragedy is that after having negotiated the Carbon Farming Initiative and the Biodiversity Fund with the Gillard government, when Kevin Rudd took over as Prime Minister he abolished the Biodiversity Fund and now Tony Abbott has virtually destroyed the Carbon Farming Initiative as well."
The Independent Biodiversity Legislation Review Panel is due to submit an Interim Report to the Environment Minister Rob Stokes on October 18.
With only 19 sitting days left before the next state election, any changes to the law could be too late for farmers trying to increase the productivity of their property and keep the banks at bay.