The federal government has put regional planning at the heart of its strategy to halt Australia’s alarming environmental decline.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek says a suite of regional plans covering the entire country, and developed in partnership with the states and territories, will form the “third arm” of a rescue plan.

They will augment Labor’s promised overhaul of environmental protection laws and the work of the new national Environmental Protection Agency.

“Commonwealth environmental approval decisions are largely done on a project-by-project basis,” she has told the Landcare conference in Sydney.

“But these individual decisions don’t take into account the cumulative impact of human activity, which is what actually places an environment under intense stress.

“If we only assess each of these applications on their own, rather than their impact on a living region, with all its organic connections and relationships, it’s easy to conclude that everything will be fine.”

She said the failings of the existing approach meant authorities do not know when a species is reaching a breaking point or falling below a critical mass.

“It’s not usually the first proposal that’s a problem … it’s the 10th proposal or the 15th proposal,” she said.

“This is how we end up with the findings in the State of the Environment Report.”

The report, released in July, found the overall condition of the environment was poor and deteriorating in the face of climate change and other threats, with more and more species threatened in poorly managed landscapes failed by existing laws.

Ms Plibersek said the government would not throw out the vast amount of regional planning work that has already taken place, and would work with the states, territories and other stakeholders to move forward.

“We will absolutely build on all the great work that has been done already,” she said.

“But what’s new here is how regional plans will be used by the Commonwealth to underpin and improve our system of environmental protection – to help us better understand the cumulative environmental impacts of individual projects and past decisions.

“These plans need to be integrated across land uses, programs and tenures. We don’t want artificial boundaries getting in the way of us managing ecosystems as ecosystems.”

Work on the regional plans will start immediately, she said.

“My department will consult on the practicalities – like how we decide boundaries and how plans will be formalised,” the minister said.

“ We want regional planning to be well underway by the time we pass our improved environmental laws next year. But the full rollout will happen over time, and no doubt the plans themselves will evolve.”

– AAP