Australia’s environment is in an unsustainable state of decline and laws set up to protect unique species and habitats are ineffective, a major review of the national environmental framework has found.
The interim report from the review of Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act recommends sweeping changes, including the establishment of a set of legally enforceable national environmental standards that set clear rules for environmental protection while allowing for sustainable development. It also recommends the establishment of an independent environmental regulator to monitor and enforce compliance with environmental laws.
The report’s first lines are stark: “Australia’s natural environment and iconic places are in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat. The current environmental trajectory is unsustainable.” The report says there is duplication between national and state and territory processes, processes are cumbersome, and that efforts to harmonise laws at federal and state level have not gone far enough. It also confirms several reports by Guardian Australia examining failures under the act, including that once species are listed as threatened little effort is made to recover them, that the act creates no requirement to do so and that less than 40% of listed species and habitats have recovery plans.
Source: Guardian
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