Hopetoun Falls, beech forest, near Great Otway National Park, Victoria. Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0
Make your submission to the federal government by 17th April 2020
Something is better than nothing.
Please take the time to write something by the 17th of April – it doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be lengthy, please just write something because that is so much better than writing nothing at all. We need to have every possible voice heard.
The Wilderness Society has an excellent guide for making your submission here: https://www.wilderness.org.au/make-your-voice-heard
Submission
Dear Professor Samuel and Independent Review Panel,
I would like to make a submission into the 2019-2020 Independent Review of the EPBC Act. I believe the EPBC is not effectively delivering environmental and biodiversity protection as intended, and further that it is not fit for the task of facing future challenges as climate change impacts increase.
This submission will cover the impacts of the EPBC’s failures that have both personally impacted me and had national impacts, and what needs to change to ensure the EPBC Act works as it was intended.
I grew up in Melbourne and have recently returned to live there again after spending eight years in Europe. My time overseas was bookended by the Black Saturday fires and by the horrific bushfire crisis of the 2019-2020 summer. One of the reasons I left Australia in the first place was because the tragedy unfolding in our environment seemed too much to bear – the sorrow of communities affected by the Black Saturday fires, the desolation of the Murray River, drought. However, I believe strongly that Australia’s biodiversity is unique, precious, and worth fighting for.
Natural places that have special significance for me include Inverloch and the Anderson Inlet, the Black Spur, Warrandyte and Marysville in the Yarra Ranges, the Barmah-Millewa lakes on the Victoria-NSW border, and the forests of western Tasmania. I’ve spent time in these places swimming, camping, holidaying and learning from local communities, including Indigenous communities. All these places are suffering the effects of disastrous environmental mismanagement. I was horrified to see ancient Tasmanian rainforest aflame during the 2019-2020 fires. Unique and irreplaceable natural heritage which brought me joy and awe was lost forever. The grotesque spectre of mass fish death in the Murray-Darling basin is another example from this summer alone. Inverloch is being battered by coastal erosion that will intensify with climate change caused sea level rises.
It’s clear there is a failure to co-ordinate environmental protection efforts across landscapes and political boundaries. The fate of the black-throated finch is an example of this. In the period 2000-2019, 775 development proposals referred to the federal government due to their potential impact on threatened species overlapped areas of potential habitat for the black-throated finch. Only one of these projects was refused approval because it was deemed to have a “clearly unacceptable” impact to the black-throated finch. The species remains in only an estimated 12% of its original range, yet habitat clearing is still being approved within the little that is left. [April Reside, James Watson, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/death-by-775-cuts-how-conservation-law-is-failing-the-black-throated-finch-110704, 31 Jan 2019]
Since the EPBC was introduced 20 years ago, climate change impacts have accelerated. Rates of land clearing have increased. An extinction crisis continues to unfold. Iconic, beloved Australian animals such as the koala face existential threats. The Murray-Darling ecosystem is threatened with collapse.
In order to address these failings, the following changes should be made to the EPBC.
National oversight must be expanded to land clearing, biodiversity and ecosystems, water resources, climate change, air pollution and protected areas. Climate change and land clearing must become triggers for projects to be reviewed under EPBC. Water impacts should be considered for all major projects, not just coal mine or coal seam gas projects.
This oversight should consider cumulative impacts and the interaction of planned projects, under a coordinated system across state and federal levels.
There should be a clear, transparent and scientifically determined set of decision-making criteria to guide whether projects with environmental impacts may proceed. Decisions should not be made based on ministerial discretion or the politics of the day.
Data used to model the impacts of projects and to guide decision making should be made publicly available.
There should be community participation in decision making, including a robust appeals process and third-party monitoring.
An independent body, separate from government, should be formed to implement the EPBC’s tasks.
This independent body should formulate and receive funding to implement a recovery plan to restore threatened species and ecosystems. This plan should set out independent criteria of assessment and be subject to yearly reporting.
An independent watchdog should be appointed to review implementation of the EPBC.
Adequate funding must be made available to fulfill the above tasks.
Thank you for your consideration of my submission. If you wish to contact me about the contents of my submission, I can be reached at [email].
Sincerely,
Melanie Thewlis