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NSW government doubles goal for national parks expansion after reaching target a year early

<span>Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

The New South Wales government will double its goal to expand the state’s national parks after reaching its 200,000 hectare target nearly a year early.

The state’s environment minister, Matt Kean, gazetted 202,669 hectares of additional national park land on Friday, including 153,682 hectares for the new Narriearra Caryapundy Swamp national park in the state’s far north-west.

The acquisition of the land in June was the largest single purchase of private land for conservation in the state’s history and was praised as a significant step for threatened species and habitat.

The government has added a total of 270,000 hectares to the national parks estate in NSW since announcing its target last year.

Kean said national parks were the “cornerstone” of conservation in the state and the government planned to add a further 200,000 hectares to the estate by 2022.

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“I made a commitment last year to expand the parks estate by 200,000 hectares and I am pleased to see that we have achieved that and more in just over a year,” he said.

“That’s why we are taking it up a notch and doubling our initial target, with a revised goal to have added 400,000 hectares in total to our national park footprint by the end of 2022.”

Capertee national park, Maria national park, Mungo national park and Sturt national park are among the parks that have had additional land protected.

The government said the additions at Capertee, near Lithgow, would increase protection for the Great Eastern Ranges wildlife corridor and a globally significant bird breeding area, while the 66 hectares addition at Maria national park would protect koala habitat on the state’s north coast.

Kean’s announcement comes at a time when the government has been under pressure over its environmental policies, after the koala state environmental planning policy (Sepp) nearly split the Coalition.

The turmoil has resulted in proposed changes to laws that legal experts and conservationists have said would weaken environmental protections.

State policies have also led to increases in land-clearing and allowed for continued logging of habitat after the state’s bushfire disaster.