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Support Stronger Nature Laws

Monday, June 5, 2023

Australia’s environmental laws are being rewritten for the first time in over 20 years.

These laws should save what nature we have left and help to restore what has been destroyed. But instead, they are outdated, barely monitored and rarely enforced, leaving loopholes for ongoing destruction.

Habitat destruction and fragmentation is a key threatening process for Australia’s native wildlife, contributing to an increase in the number of threatened and endangered species. And the impact is intensifying. The world is facing a biodiversity crisis with the extinction and decline of species. Urgent action is required to halt and reverse biodiversity loss linked to habitat changes. Being home to unique wildlife, 8% of all life on earth, and the only country where all three major divisions of mammals are present, further loss of Australian species will have global implications.

Habitat loss has social, cultural and economic outcomes and impacts for Australia and Australians. Recent fires, floods and other impacts due to a changing climate are accelerating habitat destruction and fragmentation, and the importance of climate change is likely to increase.

This is a critical opportunity to demand stronger laws that protect and help to restore the nature we have left, before the damage is irreversible. 

We are urgently calling on the Government to introduce strong national environmental laws now, that:

• Enact strong and enforceable National Environmental Standards that safeguard nature against further destruction.
• Properly fund habitat restoration and species recovery.
• Create an independent Environment Protection Australia (EPA) that will monitor and enforce these laws.
• Close legal loopholes that favour big businesses over nature.

Love nature? 

Call on the Minister for Environment and Water to help save it.

Example email

To: Minister.Plibersek@dcceew.gov.au

Subject line example: Support stronger nature laws  

To the Hon Tanya Plibersek,

The Federal Government is reforming Australia’s environmental laws following Professor Graeme Samuel's review. I urge the Government to introduce stronger national environmental laws, that:

• Enact strong and enforced National Environmental Standards that safeguard nature against further destruction.
• Properly fund habitat restoration and species recovery.
• Create an independent National Environment Protection Australia to monitor and enforce these laws.
• Close legal loopholes that favour big businesses over nature.

Australia is a place of incredible landscapes and unique wildlife, but we also lead the world in the extinction of mammals. This is a critical opportunity to protect the nature we have left and help to restore what has been destroyed. 

If you love Australian nature, please help save it.