Appendix+1

[|Article]  **Letters from the eye in the sky watching farmers ** KIM BARTLEY 17 May, 2010 04:00 AM  Dubbo and western district farmers who receive satellite pictures identifying land clearing on their properties will have to provide an explanation to the NSW Department of Environment Climate Change and Water (DECCW). The department has begun issuing letters to the owners of land where native vegetation has been removed, some of them possibly unaware of the satellite surveillance. The letters include “before and after” pictures. The department insists it has embarked on a “high-tech education program” to encourage compliance with native vegetation legislation and inform landowners of the “proper channels” available to them if they want to clear, such as property vegetation plans. The move is set to inflame debate on native vegetation laws, addressed by a recent Senate inquiry following the hunger strike of Cooma grazier Peter Spencer. The inquiry’s recommendations, released last month, stated there were “legitimate concerns about the impact of the current native vegetation laws upon a small group of Australians, namely landholders in rural and regional Australia”. In response the NSW Farmers’ Association supported calls for a national review of the laws and described mooted “new compliance pressures on farmers” as “a bit disturbing”. On Friday the DECCW Director-General Lisa Corbyn said it had been using satellite technology for “some time” to target changes to vegetation cover that “may warrant further investigation”. “Now we are also using the technology as an education tool,” she said. The department’s other tools included strategic investigations, prosecutions, penalty notices, stop-work orders, remedial directions, and warning and advisory letters. The latest set of letters also alert landowners to incentive funding available to restore and protect native vegetation on their properties. <span style="color: #262626; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13pt;">A spokesperson for the department yesterday said letter recipients would have the “opportunity to go to the CMA or department” for talks. <span style="color: #262626; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13pt;">The department says the Native Vegetation Act was introduced in 2003 to bring an end to broadscale land clearing in NSW. <span style="color: #262626; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13pt;">