A well-known and outspoken environmentalist is one of two members of the Wilderness and Ecological Reserves Advisory Council (WERAC) who have resigned citing a lack of progress by government in protecting natural areas.

Bill Montevecchi says he feels he is “complicit” in a process that has turned out to be a failure.

He joins former WERAC co-chair Victoria Neville who resigned from the council last month.

Fisheries and Land Resources Minister Gerry Byrne remains committed to the plan, but cautions that industry has a role to play.

“The perfect can’t be the enemy of the good” says Byrne. He acknowledges that industry and environment sometimes work as “polar opposites” and he has put forward a plan that he understands will not please everyone.

Montevecchi calls the minister’s comments on a lack of action “essentially vacuous.”

Montevecchi says the plan put in place in 1995 was “good to go” but says the very reasons the minister outlined in what needs to happen is what is stalling the process.

He says there have been so many compromises that the new plan is completely downgraded from what was proposed 25 years ago.