Let's end Australia's extinction crisis

The independent review of Australia’s failed national environment law released its interim report and the report confirms what most Australian’s have known: our “environment & our iconic places are in decline and under increasing threat”. This review is a once-in-a-decade chance to fix the problems and ensure the places and animals we love have the protection they deserve.

The interim report proposes putting strong and legally enforceable national standards in place to overcome the problems in the Act and drive environmental outcomes.

Unfortunately, the Morrison Government is proposing to immediately hand environmental safeguards over to the states before getting ...

The independent review of Australia’s failed national environment law released its interim report and the report confirms what most Australian’s have known: our “environment & our iconic places are in decline and under increasing threat”. This review is a once-in-a-decade chance to fix the problems and ensure the places and animals we love have the protection they deserve.

The interim report proposes putting strong and legally enforceable national standards in place to overcome the problems in the Act and drive environmental outcomes.

Unfortunately, the Morrison Government is proposing to immediately hand environmental safeguards over to the states before getting those strong environmental standards in place, and has rejected calls for an independent watchdog.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) is meant to protect our globally unique environment and conserve our precious biodiversity. But it doesn’t do what it says on the tin. Australia is a world leader in extinction. Eastern Australia is now a designated global deforestation hotspot, alongside places including the Amazon, the Congo and Borneo. Mega-fossil fuel projects threaten our wildlife and our climate.

Now’s the time for our governments to lead and ensure Australia’s unique nature has a future. We know the solution and we know it will work: strong laws with clear safeguards, that are fairly and independently enforced for all and backed by guaranteed community rights. Please email your Federal MP today.

Image: Ken Griffiths

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Dear MP, Let's stop extinction

Write to your Federal MP to safeguard the life that supports us. Just enter your postcode below and click send. A personalised message to your MP will have a bigger impact: simply edit the text in the box below.

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I am emailing you, as my local Member of Parliament, to encourage you to bring into place stronger laws to end Australia’s extinction and deforestation crises, and safeguard our globally unique wildlife, forests and iconic natural places in response to the independent review into our national environment law.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) is meant to protect our globally unique environment and conserve our precious biodiversity. But Australia leads the world in extinction, our cultural heritage is being blown apart and we’re the only developed country with a deforestation front.

The report confirms what most Australians have known for a long time—our national environment law isn’t working. The report calls for strong and legally enforceable national standards to overcome the problems in the Act and drive environmental outcomes, and an ‘independent compliance and enforcement regulator’ to oversee these decisions.

But the Morrison Government is proposing to hand environmental protections over to the states before getting those strong environmental safeguards in place. This should not happen before the independent review is complete and strong safeguards are in place to deal with major drivers of extinction like deforestation, build resilience in the face of climate change and protect our globally important wildlife.

The Morrison Government has also rejected calls for an independent watchdog, despite a recent Auditor General report outlining ongoing, systemic failures by the Environment Department to enforce the laws and manage conflicts of interest.

I call on you and your parliamentary colleagues to support the solution that we know will work: 
- ensure strong, proactive regulatory safeguards are in place to protect our cultural and natural heritage and a clear, accountable system for enforcing them, before  handing over Federal responsibilities to the states;
- establish an independent watchdog that can enforce the law in a robust and transparent way to all sectors;
- ensure we have good, reliable and publicly available environmental data, so decision-makers can identify and track the impacts of those decisions; and
- guarantee robust community oversight and ability to challenge bad decisions.

In a country still reeling from the ecological catastrophe of the 2019-20 bushfires, we need national leadership to safeguard the ecosystems that support us, build resilience in the face of climate change, support communities to recover and protect our globally important wildlife.

You have the power to ensure our precious wildlife and forests don’t go the way of the Tasmanian Tiger. We need your leadership now.

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