Nature Can’t Wait: Call for Laws to End Deforestation and Extinction

The Wilderness Society has welcomed Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt’s sense of urgency to reform Australia’s ailing nature law, while cautioning that this push must not come at the expense of reforms that meaningfully respond to the crises facing nature by stopping deforestation, ending extinctions and ensuring a fair say for the public. 

Minister Watt today continued consultations with interest groups to progress desperately-needed changes to federal nature law. The Minister held a roundtable with business groups and select environmental organisations and First Nations groups, at which he articulated three key “pillars”. The Wilderness Society welcomes the pillars’ key focuses on stronger nature protections, more robust assessment of developments, and increased accountability and transparency: this must not be lip service. Nature also needs law reforms to end deforestation and species extinctions, and that avoid carve outs or special treatment for specific sectors or projects (which the Minister has not yet committed to).

Sam Szoke-Burke, Biodiversity Policy and Campaign Manager at the Wilderness Society, said:

“From the diverse, tropical wonders of the Kimberley to Lutruwita/Tasmania’s majestic tall forests, Australia’s iconic environment is in urgent need of care and protection. After an extremely disappointing showing on nature reform last term, the Albanese government now has an opportunity to return to the Labor Party’s rich historic legacy of bold, popular action to protect and prioritise nature. 

“Australians find awe and sustenance in the bush and the plants and wildlife that call it home, and are sick of seeing it trashed and bulldozed. First Nations people are fundamentally connected to land and sea Country. It’s time for the government to do its job and take decisive action to strengthen nature protections, stop deforestation and take the action needed for Australia’s iconic plants and wildlife to thrive. We applaud the renewed focus on transparency and accountability—reforms are needed to make sure the government listens to the public, not just corporations.”

Australia’s unique and iconic natural environment has been smashed by decades of mismanagement and ineffectual laws. Australia is the worst in the world for mammal extinctions and is a deforestation hotspot, alongside Borneo and the Amazon. Woeful transparency and accountability around environmental decisions also led the Albanese government to focus, in its 2022 Nature Positive Plan, on the need to rebuild public trust. 

That’s why we are calling for urgent and bold action to protect nature and ensure a fair say for the public. After failing to fulfil its promise to reform the law last term, the Albanese government must act swiftly and decisively to deliver laws that stop deforestation, end extinctions and ensure a fair say for the public in environmental decisions. 

The Environment Minister is the subject of legal proceedings brought by the Wilderness Society in March that allege the Minister failed to create legally-required recovery plans for select threatened species including the greater glider and the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed eagle. We say it’s the Environment Minister’s job to make recovery plans for threatened species and that, despite decades of outcry, government after government have not been doing their job.