James Griffin
James Griffin is a New South Wales MP for the Liberal Party and Member for Manly. He currently serves as the New South Wales Minister for Environment and Heritage having previously served as the Chairman of the NSW Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Planning.
Following media reports in August of 2022 that land clearing rates in NSW had risen by 73% since the introduction of new laws, a spokesperson for Mr. Griffin responded that the government had taken 273 compliance actions in 2020 to 2021, including issuing penalty notices and warning letters and five prosecutions, and had secured additional land to be protected:
“Since 2019, the NSW Government has secured 600,000 hectares for addition to the national parks estate, and Minister Griffin is working to continue that trend.
In February of 2023 Mr. Griffin announced the purchase of more than 400,000 hectares of land in north-western New South Wales to be added back into the state's national parks. However, WWF Australia conservation scientist, Dr. Stuart Blanch, stated that NSW was the second-worst jurisdiction in Australia for areas protected as a proportion of the state's total territory.
Mr. Griffin has also been recently called upon by Australian Ethical Super to intervene regarding a Lendlease development which may affect koala habitat, as:
"Neither Lendlease or the NSW Department of Planning and Environment have given the public meaningful information about the proposed koala corridors at Mt Gilead, and we have serious concerns about the way the reports from the NSW chief scientist and other experts are being interpreted by the department."