The final report from Professor Graeme Samuel AC was released this week, found Australia's natural environment and iconic places were in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat unless changes are made.

An interim report on the review of the Environmental Protection Biodiversity and Conservation Act was released in July last year. In it, Professor Samuel said the protections did not allow "the Commonwealth to effectively protect environmental matters that are important to the nation".

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Professor Samuel's interim report was the second report released in June last year which detailed the failings of the 20-year old legislation. The first, from the Australian National Audit Office, found that the government's handling of the laws rendered them "not effective".

That report found that 79 per cent of approvals contained conditions that were non-compliant with procedural guidance or contained clerical errors.

It also highlighted that offsets - a process where areas of habitat are improved in one region to compensate for degradation in another - were having a negative impact on endangered species.

Professor Samuel's final report was scathing.

"The environment is not sufficiently resilient to withstand current, emerging or future threats, including climate change. The environmental trajectory is currently unsustainable," the report reads.

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The report laid out 38 recommendations to fix ailing protections and better safeguard the Australia's environment. At the top of the list is the creation of enforceable National Environmental Standards which will govern approvals processes going forward.

Along side those new standards Professor Samuel's recommended the creation of three oversight bodies to ensure compliance.

It was also recommended that an accreditation system be put in place so approvals processes can be passed to states.

In July last year when Professor Samuel introduced his interim report there was concern that shifting the power for environmental approvals to the states could result in a botched process - particularly in Tasmania.

Those concerns were born out of the government's decision not to legislate an independent regulator to ensure national standards were followed.

Instead the federal government tried to ram reforms through parliament which would have devolved approvals powers to the states - before the creation of national standards.

At the time federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley also ruled out establishing an independent body to ensure compliance.

If the government continues with its plan to devolve the approval powers - which Professor Samuel recommended again in his final report - Tasmania would assume responsibility for all environmental approvals.

Another of Professor Samuel's recommendations could have a significant impact on Tasmania's forestry sector.

The final report recommended that the government "abolish the effective exception from environment laws granted to all native forest logging covered by Regional Forest Agreements between the federal and state governments".

It comes at a time when protests against logging of native forests across Tasmania are ramping up.

Blue Derby Wild have been campaigning against the proposed logging of coupes in the Blue Tier forests near popular mountain bike tracks.

Meanwhile the Bob Brown Foundation has been staging a sit-ins at forests throughout the North-West and central plateau - the latest of which is occurring at Wentworth Hills.

The foundation is also in the midst of a Federal Court case aimed at stopping native forest logging in Tasmania entirely - a judgement on that case is expected in coming weeks. Bob Brown said the recommendation to remove exemptions for native forest logging added to the strength of their case.

Environmental protection and conservation groups have welcomed the recommendations made by Professor Samuel.

The Wilderness Society's national environment campaign manager Suzanne Millthorpe said the report clearly reflected public expectations, experts' views and the evidence. She said the question was now whether the government would act.

"Over 30,000 scientists, law experts and community members made submissions into this review. Overwhelmingly, they called for the government to act and reform our national nature laws, to end Australia's extinction crisis and to guarantee Australians the right to have a say in decisions about how we protect our natural icons," she said.

"The review has accepted the view of the scientific community, the public and conservationists that a failure to undertake widespread reform is to as Graeme Samuel said, 'to accept the continued decline of our iconic places and the extinction of our most threatened plants, animals and ecosystems'."

The Australian Conservation Foundation's nature program manager Basha Stasak said the EPBC had failed to protect Australia's unique wildlife, plants and ecosystems. She said it was time for an overhaul of the laws.

"Australia has become a global deforestation hotspot with one of the worst extinction records on Earth," Ms Stasak said.

"Entire ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef and the Murray Darling Basin are collapsing.

"It is time to overhaul our national environment law with a full package of reforms that includes strong legally enforceable standards and an independent regulator - and these must be in force before the government pursues its Streamlining Amendment legislation."

The Australian Forest Products Association deputy chief executive officer Victor Violante said Australians should be confident that forestry operations around the country provided all the required environmental safeguards outlined by the EPBC Act.

"RFAs are required by law to be independently reviewed, and all the reviews have found that RFAs are meeting or exceeding environmental objectives while providing a level of certainty to industry," he said.

"Also, all RFAs were reviewed and renewed in recent years to ensure that they remained up to date and reflected the latest available science and were amended accordingly."

A Tasmanian government spokesperson said the government was reviewing Professor Samuel's final report and looks forward to working through any proposed changes with the federal government.

"The government is supportive of measures that reduce duplication in the environmental approvals system whilst maintaining rigour in assessment and decision-making processes," the spokesperson said. "The Tasmanian government has full confidence in our RFA and our sustainable forestry industry."

In a statement federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley said the government was committed to working through the full detail of the recommendations with stakeholders.

She said the government would continue trying to progress legislation to pass approvals powers to the states through the Senate.

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