There has been an acceleration in the number of coal seam gas and mining proposals approved in Australia.
Since 2010, eight projects have been given the green light in Queensland alone. All projects have…
Take care! The precautionary principle can only go so far without data to rely on.
Jeremy Buckingham
Yesterday, the Federal government issued new recommendations for methods to estimate emissions from conventional gas and from coal seam gas production. So what did we learn?
The proposals seek to refine…
Is Coca-Cola Amatil’s opposition to the Northern Territory’s container deposit scheme out of concern for household budgets or simply decreased profit margins?
Flickr/Julian Stallabrass
A reported 10 billion drink containers are thrown away in Australia every year. Many of these are recycled, but many end up in landfill, on roadsides and in waterways.
The danger posed to wildlife by…
When the community feels locked out of the environmental approvals process, they look for other avenues.
Kate Ausburn
This week’s hoax email from an anti-coal activist, Jonathan Moylan, highlights an emerging issue in land-use conflicts both in Australia and internationally. Activists, and in many instances, communities…
The NSW Government recommends not eating fish caught west of Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Gord McKenna/Flickr
The story of dioxin contamination of Sydney Harbour shows us the great value of the green safety net of environmental law.
The laws that form this green safety net, particularly federal laws, have recently…
The Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park was the scene of environmental disputes between the Tasmanian and federal governments.
Nomad Tales/Flickr
Logical minds like to think of the different levels of government like a neatly layered cake, but the reality is more like scrambled eggs. Nowhere is that more true than in relation to protecting and managing…
The NSW government has cut funding to the EDO, which provides legal advice to the public on environmental matters.
SplaTT/Flickr
In Greek mythology the Hydra was a reptilian guardian, a multi-headed creature defending one of the entrances to the underworld. If a would-be killer removed one of its heads, two more would grow in its…
Dealing with the law is intimidating, now Queensland wants to make it more expensive as well.
Martin Howard
The cost of litigation is a barbed wire fence that stops many people using our court system. This fence becomes a towering barrier when people are trying to protect not their private interests, but something…
Sandon Point, where EDO NSW argued a landmark case for a resident concerned about a development that failed to consider climate change and increased flooding.
Powerhouse Museum
With a new planning system about to be introduced in NSW, the need for an independent, specialist public interest environmental and planning law centre is greater than ever.
For nearly 30 years, the Environmental…
The proposed logging bill would tighten exportation from Indonesia in particular.
CIFOR
The Australian Senate is about to take on the task of stopping illegal logging, with legislation banning the importation and sale of timber products containing illegally logged timber being considered…
Brigalow trees are vital for soil health and erosion control. They’re only just recovering from 19th century clearing. Why does the Queensland Government have it in for them?
Arthur Chapman
The Queensland State Government has recently proposed changes to the Vegetation Management Act 1999.
Under the planned reforms, landowners will be able to clear and thin out vegetation using self-assessable…
The US Endangered Species Act controversially lets ordinary citizens propose endangered species: would it work in Australia?
Doug Beckers
The US Endangered Species Act, which became law in 1973, was one of the first major pieces of national legislation for the protection of biodiversity. It is still one of the most stringent. It has also…
The EPA has made great strides in protecting waterways, but its pollution licences still don’t do what they should.
Ian Wright
NSW is not doing enough to prevent excessive environmental damage from chemical leaks: it is more common than many people realise for liquid wastes to be discharged into waterways.
The NSW Environment…
Tony Burke and Andrew Wilkie are happy with the super trawler wash-up. If fish could read, they’d be happy too.
AAP Image/Penny Bradfield
The scientific and public debate around the super trawler FV Margiris, now reflagged as the Abel Tasman, has been significant, lively and at times, heated. The debate has been worth it: the outcome – an…
The legal implications of changes to the carbon price mechanism are subtle, but important.
Pawel Loj
By Shol Blustein, Queensland University of Technology
Earlier this week the federal Government announced important changes to the carbon pricing mechanism (CPM). The political and economic consequences have been much discussed, but the less-talked-of legal…
The Federal Government has given the go-ahead to the Alpha coal development (this picture shows the existing trial mine), but will it ever be built?
Greenpeace/Andrew Quilty
Picking who is right in political disputes is often hard but this one is different.
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman was clearly wrong in stating that the Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke is…
Beware the hyperbole: Campbell Newman has vowed to axe the Wild Rivers legislation, but what’s the reality beneath the rhetoric?
AAP/Alan Porritt
Those who follow the Wild Rivers debates in Queensland probably know better than to trust the headlines. When, in January 2010, Tony Abbott announced a federal intervention into the state’s environmental…
Australia could have led the world in assessing projects for their economic, social and environmental impacts, but we lost our nerve.
AAP
WHAT IS AUSTRALIA FOR? Australia is no longer small, remote or isolated. It’s time to ask What Is Australia For?, and to acknowledge the wealth of resources we have beyond mining. Over the next two weeks…
Does the Queensland Premier understand his own State’s mine approval process?
AAP
The dispute between the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments over the approval of Gina Rinehart’s Alpha Coal Mine continues to escalate with the Prime Minister now backing her Environment Minister…
Minister Tony Burke is slowing down coal development in Queensland, but there’s more to it than saving turtles.
Landfeldt/Flickr
The halt in the Alpha Coal Project approval process shows the Commonwealth is taking very seriously UNESCO’s recent report threatening downgrading the status of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area…
When a rubbish dump gets fast-tracked through planning, it’s time to ask questions.
Brad Jessup
Would you classify a landfill for a rural city in New South Wales as state or regionally significant? Should it get a smoother ride through the planning system than other kinds and scales of development…
Newman’s campaign promises were key to endorsements from some Indigenous organisations, but there has since been little action.
AAP
As I wrote in March, whether the Wild Rivers Act was repealed or prolonged in the wake of the Queensland election, underlying issues concerning the future and politics of Cape York Peninsula would persist…
There’s a lot of opposition to CSG mining in NSW. Will Marrickville’s moves to stop it encourage other councils?
AAP
Earlier this week, Marrickville City Council in suburban Sydney blocked an attempt to mine coal seam gas on privately owned land in the inner-city area of St Peters. The Council imposed a condition on…
Koalas face some serious threats, and listing them as “vulnerable” is an important step to saving them.
AAP
This week, the Australian Government listed several koala populations as “vulnerable”, giving them special protection. As a koala researcher and conservation planner, I am most impressed with Minister…
The current environmental impact regulations often produce nothing more than a big pile of paper.
liz west
The last few weeks have seen an extraordinary cross party agreement that environmental regulation of development needs reform. The Prime Minister wants coordination with the states streamlined; the Leader…
‘Green tape’ is an emotive term that tries to make condemning environmental protection look like common sense.
Bill Rogers
With only inverted commas signalling the spin, the news media have happily re-cycled the term “green tape”, the latest rhetorical gambit by those decrying environmental protections as unnecessarily delaying…
Who’s responsible for this? Better disaster law could answer that question.
AAP
On 28 March the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its full report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX).
The IPCC’s…
A new national partnership agreement could allay a lot of CSG worries, if the states sign up.
kateausburn/Flickr
A new national agreement designed to protect water resources from coal seam gas extraction and coal mining could offer a level of protection so far unseen in Australian environmental legislation. Any states…
There’s more to this Act than environmental protection.
Cam Pervan/Flickr
The debates and controversy around the Wild Rivers legislation can be perplexing. As John Holmes has argued, the Act’s significance stems from “the durability and intractability” of pre-existing contests…
Could more plantations help reduce emissions? It depends if they’re done right.
esagor
DURBAN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE: One of the topics under discussion at Durban is the role carbon farming and other forestry measures could have in reducing emissions. With the possibility that negotiations…
Farmers have been shocked to find coal seam exploration companies can enter their property.
kateausburn
All over Australia, landowners are fighting to keep mining companies off their property.
From the Darling Downs to the Liverpool Plains, farmers have been locking out coal seam gas extraction companies…
Environmentalists are getting off the streets and into the courts in an effort to stop coal.
Takver
The bill creating the carbon price has passed through Parliament. However, the campaigning efforts of the environmental lobby will not pause. More than ever, the coal industry is in its sights, with court…
There’s a lot of detail in the carbon price legislation, but it comes down to six key points.
Australian Government
Australia’s carbon price mechanism has become law. But how does it work? There are six key points:
1. Australia’s emissions trajectory
Australia has committed unconditionally to reduce its greenhouse…
Demanding climate data won’t provide a new window into global warming.
nasa hq photo/flickr
When it comes to obtaining research data, Canadian academic Steve Easterbrook said it best:
“Any fool knows you don’t get data from a scientist by using FOI requests, you do it by stroking their ego a…
With the release of the US Government’s “Report regarding the causes of the Macondo Well blowout”, it may be time to take another look at whether Australian legislation can prevent a Deepwater Horizon…
Building a wind farm in India offsets emissions here: but did the locals want a wind farm?
danishwindindustryassociation/Flickr
If climate change ever was in equal part a moral, economic and environmental challenge, then it is no longer so. Morality has fallen from attention.
The economists have long dominated the climate change…
Poor regulation overseas has set the stage for disaster.
AAP
The last week has seen the Australian coal seam gas (CSG) industry come under increasing scrutiny. Triggered by a gas explosion in the Darling Downs in Queensland, and legal action against BHP in the US…
The availability of oil has led to changes in Arctic governance.
AAP
Recent Wikileaks cables detailing diplomatic jostling over the Arctic region only confirm how hotly contested it has become.
There are three principal reasons for this tension:
-The dynamic created by…
The Tarkine is our largest cool temperate rainforest, but will that be enough to save it?
Flickr/leonrw
Once a place is heritage listed, it’s protected, right? Wrong. Politics and a flawed statutory regime are undermining the independence of the listing system, and threatening Australia’s national treasures…
