This is the flora fauna EIS Draft and there certainly is an area of risk in regards to mitigating issues and monitoring. It's odd that the Supplement seemed to be all around Water / Bores and work in this area. Could it be the NTEPA did not include more to be done in the monitoring plans of Flora / Fauna and then added this after the Supplement...
10. Conclusion The Project area has the potential to support a range of threatened fauna species, including eight listed as vulnerable or endangered under the EPBC Act. These species are likely to occupy the full range of available fauna habitats within the Project area, but the sandplain spinifex habitat has the potential to support more threatened species than other habitats. The threatened fauna relevant to the Project can be categorised as follows: • Fauna in rocky habitat (Black-footed Rock-wallaby (MacDonnell Ranges race), Petrogale lateralis) • Ground-dwelling sandplain fauna with limited mobility (Greater Bilby, Macrotis lagotis; Brush-tailed Mulgara, Dasycercus blythi; Great Desert Skink, Liopholis kintorei; Southern Marsupial Mole, Notoryctes typhlops) • Arid-zone avifauna with high mobility (Night Parrot, Pezoporus occidentalis; Red Goshawk, Erythrotriorchis radiatus; Princess Parrot, Polytelis alexandrae; Grey Falcon, Falco hypoleucos) • Fauna in riparian habitat (Common Brushtail Possum (Southern NT), Trichosurus vulpecula vulpecula). The Project poses a range of potential impacts on some of these threatened fauna species. Before mitigation, a small number of impacts have the potential to be medium or high risk. The main sources of impact on fauna are expected to be from: • Clearing of vegetation, particularly for the 100 km access road • Unplanned wildfire, inadvertently started by mine construction or operation • Collisions between fauna and traffic during construction and operation, particularly in spinifex sandplain habitat and particularly at night • Introduction and/or spread of weeds (particularly through inadequate site reinstatement) • Increase in population size of native and non-native predators (particularly through inadequate management of garbage/waste, which could attract vermin, and subsequently their predators such as cats and foxes). The extent and severity of impact that this Project has on fauna depends entirely on the level of management and mitigation effort given. There is potential for all impacts and risks to be reduced to an acceptable level (i.e. not significant) through the use of effective and appropriate management and mitigation. Inadequate management and mitigation has the potential to lead to irreversible long-term impacts on some threatened fauna species. Monitoring will be required to measure the effectiveness of mitigation and to identify where changes in effort may be required.
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