Australia needs #NewNatureLaws. Now.

Australia's environmental regulatory framework is failing to protect our species, forests and ecosystems from major destructive threats. It is in desperate need of a complete overhaul following the devastating 2019-2020 bushfires.

An article in today's Guardian revealed that the federal government has stopped listing major threats to species and making threat abatement plans under Australia's much-derided national environment law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act). The reason given for this shift is limited resources and because threat abatement plans have quote, "limited regulatory influence".

That is, they don't actually help us deal with major threats to wildlife and forests. This is a fair point to make because the EPBC Act doesn't have any hard lines that rule out the most destructive and threatening activities. And for decades, successive Governments have lacked even the basic political will to tackle major threats like deforestation of old-growth and high conservation value forests or enforce even the weak protections we do have.

Identifying key threats (or 'key threatening processes', in the language of the EPBC Act) and then coming up with a plan to stop them is fundamental to ending Australia's reign as world champion in extinction. But instead, three of the biggest threats to wildlife and forests - broadscale deforestation, changing fire patterns and climate change - have no threat abatement plans. Native forest logging - which is a core cause of decline for over 48 listed species - is even exempt from the EPBC Act.

Again and again, we see that Australia's environment laws and regulations don't do what they say on the tin. Identifying and addressing threats to nature must be a cornerstone of planning & conservation decision making. A lack of resources is an unacceptable excuse. Threats to species don't decrease over time, and enforcing laws and plans to fix them should not be treated as a luxury.

To learn more about how our national environment laws are failing Australia's wildlife and forests, and the solution nature needs, visit the Wilderness Society's "Nature Laws that Work" page.