ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACT 1986 - SECT 74B

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACT 1986 - SECT 74B

74B .         Other defences to environmental harm offences

        (1)         It is a defence to proceedings under this Part for causing serious environmental harm or material environmental harm if the person charged with that offence proves that the environmental harm was, or resulted from, an authorised act which did not contravene any other written law.

        (2)         For the purposes of subsection (1) an act was authorised if it was —

            (a)         done in accordance with an authorisation, approval, requirement or exemption given in the exercise of a power under another written law; or

            (b)         done in the exercise by a public authority, or a member, officer or employee of a public authority, of a function conferred under another written law; or

            (c)         an act of a kind that the chief executive officer of the department of the Public Service principally assisting in the administration of the Biosecurity and Agriculture Management Act 2007 has specified, by order published in the Gazette , to be a normal agricultural activity for the purposes of this paragraph; or

            (d)         an agricultural activity (including the management or harvesting of a plantation) done in compliance with a code of practice relating to an activity of that kind —

                  (i)         issued under section 122A; or

                  (ii)         made or approved under any other written law;

                or

            (e)         without limiting section 74A and paragraphs (a) to (d) of this subsection, clearing of a kind set out in Schedule 6; or

            (f)         an act of a kind prescribed for the purposes of section 51C that was not done in an environmentally sensitive area within the meaning of section 51A.

        [Section 74B inserted: No. 54 of 2003 s. 55; amended: No. 54 of 2011 s. 4.]