Region. First 'BioBank' site

The Environment Minister, Frank Sartor, today will announce the first of the state's highly controversial ''BioBank'' sites with the government purchase of 80 hectares of grassland near Camden as a permanent conservation reserve.The offset purchase marks a new era in environmental management and is the first step in a plan to secure some of the surviving pockets of building land in Western Sydney for the construction of 180,000 houses in 40 years. The $1.7 million paid for the Camden reserve, funded through a developer levy, will be used to manage the site for conservation