The Australian Parliament has simply handed main historic reforms to the nation’s outdated and damaged nature legal guidelines, the Setting Safety and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). This marks the primary overhaul of this regulation because it got here into drive below the Howard Authorities in 2000. Whereas it is a vital step ahead for forest safety and nature extra broadly in Australia, there’s nonetheless main work to be executed to halt the extreme local weather impacts on nature from poisonous coal and gasoline mine approvals. Right here’s what occurred and what it means for nature safety in Australia.
What was flawed with the EPBC Act?
Nature in Australia is in critical decline and that’s the clearest signal that the EPBC Act doesn’t work. Below the previous system, only a few large growth initiatives have been ever rejected and main loopholes allowed rampant deforestation from native forest logging and agriculture. The Act targeted way more on course of than on actual environmental outcomes, and for a few years, scientists and environmental regulation consultants have been calling for giant reforms to repair the issues.
What occurred within the reform course of?
There have been two main evaluations of the EPBC Act prior to now 15 years, but neither had been acted on till this week. The newest was the “Samuels Evaluation” accomplished in 2020, which delivered a scathing evaluation of the Act. Whereas the Albanese Authorities tried to implement a few of these reforms final 12 months, it stopped brief after intense strain from the mining trade and the WA Authorities. This time period, the Prime Minister made delivering these reforms a precedence, appointing Setting Minister Murray Watt to get the job executed by the top of this 12 months.
This week, these long-delayed reforms lastly handed by way of Parliament after an important settlement was struck with the Greens to safe the laws by way of the Senate.
What are the massive optimistic adjustments?
There are main adjustments to how the regulation will now function, together with:
Nationwide Environmental Requirements will probably be launched, and all environmental choices, together with large challenge approvals, will probably be required to stick to them.
The Setting Minister may have clearer powers to reject probably the most harmful initiatives early, with new definitions of “unacceptable impacts” written into the Act.
A brand new Nationwide Setting Safety Company will probably be established as an impartial watchdog, with vital enforcement powers and dramatically elevated fines of as much as $825 million for firms.
Massive initiatives might want to meet a brand new “internet acquire” check, proving they go away the setting higher off general.
A stronger emphasis on bioregional planning will enable for giant “no-go” zones for harmful growth, making certain faster approval for renewable power initiatives that don’t hurt nature.
As well as, the settlement between the Albanese Authorities and the Greens secured main wins for forests and stronger environmental safeguards extra broadly:
For the primary time, the native forest logging trade will lose its long-standing exemption, which means there will probably be a crackdown on the destruction of threatened species habitat in logging areas.
There’ll even be a $300 million bundle to retool the forest trade and its employees to shift in the direction of plantation forestry fairly than destruction of native forests.
The agricultural trade will face more durable requirements for bulldozing regenerated forest older than 15 years and forest and bushland near watercourses within the Nice Barrier Reef river catchment areas.
There will probably be no quick monitoring of coal and gasoline initiatives, together with stopping states and territories from approving these initiatives on behalf of the Federal Authorities.
The facility to reject initiatives based mostly on their impacts on water assets will stay solely with the Federal Authorities, fairly than being handed to states.
The Nationwide Environmental Requirements will probably be stronger than initially deliberate, eradicating obscure wording that left an excessive amount of discretion to the Setting Minister.
There will probably be extra constraints on using biodiversity offsets as they apply to the habitat of probably the most threatened species.
The place the reforms nonetheless fall brief
Whereas these reforms are an enormous step ahead for nature, there are nonetheless some main gaps and critical areas of concern that require vigilance and robust advocacy to vary.
The largest of those is the entire lack of powers to reject poisonous coal and gasoline mines based mostly on the extreme local weather affect they’ve on nature in Australia. We all know that emissions burned from these mine approvals considerably affect our climate, which significantly harms threatened species, ecosystems and iconic locations just like the Nice Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef. However the Authorities refused to even contemplate the problem. If we’re critical about defending nature, we should proceed the battle to finish the enlargement of coal and gasoline and section out fossil fuels altogether.
One other main concern is the proposal to accredit state and territory governments to approve large initiatives on behalf of the Federal Authorities. Though there will probably be some restricted safeguards, equivalent to accreditation being based mostly on making use of the brand new Nationwide Environmental Requirements, we all know that state and territory governments can’t be trusted to make such large choices. Choices that form the way forward for the environment should stay a core duty of the nationwide authorities.
A ultimate concern is the plan to determine a biodiversity offset fund. With out far stronger safeguards, this fund dangers turning into a “pay to destroy” scheme, permitting builders to easily pay cash to skirt their obligations to guard nature. That is an space that wants a lot stronger guardrails, though we’d want there wasn’t such a fund in any respect.
What subsequent?
These are actually historic and significant adjustments to our nationwide nature legal guidelines. It has taken a few years to get right here with the laborious work of so many Australians, communities and environmental advocates. Whereas critical flaws stay, we now have one thing a lot stronger to work with to guard our forests, wildlife and nature in Australia. It’s now about implementation. This consists of holding the Authorities accountable for what has been promised and persevering with to advocate strongly to repair the excellent areas of concern. Let’s get to work!
