Landscape-scale EPBC approvals: Draft regulations open for comment until 13 October

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) is consulting on draft regulations for landscape-scale approvals under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (EPBC Act). They cover bioregional plans, bioregional guidance plans and strategic assessments, and are intended to take effect by 1 December 2026. Submissions close on 13 October 2026. 

These settings decide whether development can be approved once, at regional scale, rather than project by project. Landscape-scale planning is essential to managing ecological systems. A bioregional plan can settle, once and for a whole region, where development can go and where it cannot. We support the model. Whether it works in practice depends on detail the consultation papers leave open. 

What the draft regulations propose 

The reforms create two kinds of plan, bioregional guidance plans and bioregional plans. Bioregional guidance plans are retained. Decision-makers must have regard to them, but they do not authorise actions. The new bioregional plans have regulatory zones. A priority action registered in a development zone will not need project-level approval, provided it complies with the plan’s conditions. Restricted classes of action in conservation zones are prohibited. Developers who register pay a bioregional plan registration charge, which funds restoration actions delivered by the Restoration Contributions Holder. 

Under the draft regulations, a bioregional plan must be consistent with all four National Environmental Standards made on 19 August 2026. It must identify the location and relevant habitat of all matters of national environmental significance (MNES, the protected matters under the EPBC Act) in the plan area. It must also justify its plan and zone boundaries, and include a Registration Charge Information Statement, a monitoring plan and a consultation statement. A guidance plan would need to be consistent with the Community Engagement and Data and Information Standards, as guidance plans do not authorise actions or set offset requirements. Future Standards may also apply to both types of plan once made. 

An application to register a priority action must include the applicant’s environmental compliance history and evidence that it can comply with conditions. The Minister would need to be satisfied that registration would not exceed the plan’s “assumed development level”. Plans must be reviewed at least every five years.

Priority and restricted classes need defining 

Paper 2 does not say how a “priority class of action” or a “restricted class of action” will be defined, or how broadly. Those definitions will decide which projects can register in a development zone and what is ruled out in a conservation zone. They are as important to proponents as the zone boundaries, and a question worth raising in submissions. 

Mapping has to be ground-truthed 

Paper 2 says the regulations will embed “clear, mandatory requirements” for how environmental values are identified. The mandatory inclusions require a plan to identify the location and relevant habitat of all MNES, but do not say how. There is no evidence standard, no expectation of field survey, and no process for landholders to put forward better data or challenge a development or conservation zone boundary. This point is key since a boundary decides whether an action is exempt or prohibited. 

A plan built on desktop review produces broad “blobs” that miss what matters on the ground. It also leaves each landholder to survey and plan in isolation, the piecemeal outcome the pathway is meant to avoid. In my view, field-validated baseline mapping should be funded by government upfront and recovered through the registration charge, so the cost sits with those who benefit from the plan. There should however be a process for landholders to contribute to, and challenge, the dataset determining development and conservation zone boundary placement. 

The registration charge needs a price 

Each plan must state how its registration charge will be calculated. No method is proposed. Consultation Paper 3 on compensation options leaves the calculation of charges to future consultation. For a developer weighing a registered pathway against a project referral, the charge is the key number. To be taken up, it has to compete with delivering an offset directly.

The assumed development level limits registrations 

Each plan would specify an assumed development level for each priority class of action. The draft regulations would tie restoration contribution payments to it, and the Minister would need to be satisfied that a registration would not exceed it. The papers do not say how the level is set, or what happens to proponents once it is reached. The regulations would also require the five-yearly review to consider whether the level “remains appropriate”. Of note here is that land supply for major projects like urban development, renewables and resources projects is planned over longer horizons than five years. Proponents will need to know how registered projects, and those in preparation, are treated if the level changes. Registrations can be transferred and extended, but their term is not stated. 

Plans and assessments in transition 

Some strategic assessment changes commenced on 20 February 2026. The remainder, including the new legislative tests, commence by 1 December 2026. Under the draft regulations, approving a strategic assessment must be consistent with the Standards for MNES, Offsets, Community Engagement, and Data and Information. The transitional rules for assessments already underway have not been released. The paper states that the National EPA is “currently developing” policy guidance. Proponents part-way through a strategic assessment need both before December. 

A similar gap applies to bioregional guidance plans. Those developed and consulted on before the new tests commence will not need to be consistent with the Standards, yet decision-makers must still have regard to them.

What it means environmentally 

A bioregional plan would set out the bioregional restoration actions (offsets) to be delivered, and who is responsible for them. Under the draft regulations, each action must specify the residual significant impacts it addresses and its intended outcomes for protected matters. Where the Restoration Contributions Holder delivers the actions, registration charges and contributions from parties to the plan would fund them, and the Holder must spend consistently with the plan. A plan can also include supplementary actions that go beyond net gain, or restore protected matters that development does not affect. 

In my view, this is where the model offers the most for biodiversity. Funds pooled from many developments can be spent on restoration chosen for the whole region, rather than on whatever offset each project can secure on its own. Delivery would follow the timeframe set in the plan, or three years by default, with maintenance for at least 25 years or until durable. The Holder would publish management plans and report each year, including on funds received but not yet committed. 

The stated intent is plans that are “evidence-based, nationally consistent, and capable of delivering measurable protection”. Mandatory MNES mapping, monitoring plans and conservation zones would constitute notable improvements over the piecemeal status quo approach. 

Making a submission 

DCCEEW asks whether you support each proposal, in part or not at all, and why. The papers and online survey are on the DCCEEW consultation page. Submissions close at 9.00pm AEDT (8.00pm Brisbane time) on Tuesday 13 October 2026. 

This article is general commentary on draft regulations released for public consultation. It is not legal advice and should not be relied on for any particular project or application.