New environment laws to protect the places and wildlife we love
For decades, federal environmental laws have played a vital role in protecting nationally important environmental values, including those put at risk by weak state environment laws or threatened from destructive development proposals supported by state governments.
Recently we have stood with environment groups across the country to support our federal environment laws, during a time when the coalition government looked set to walk away from national protection for our environment by surrendering environmental powers to state governments.
Yet even with Federal laws intact, Australia leads the world on extinction, with the highest number of mammals declared extinct since European settlement. Deforestation continues to destroy forests and bushland, ravaging critical habitat and important ecosystems.
The threat to our nation’s heritage is so serious that we helped to establish the largest environmental alliance in our country’s history. The Places You Love alliance stands for protecting the places and wildlife we love.
Together, we are calling for a new generation of environment laws that genuinely protect our environment and conserve our biodiversity, including:
- A new generation of national environmental laws that genuinely protect our unique wildlife and the places we love.
- Independent institutions that set science-based national environmental standards, and operate transparently and independently of government, including:
- A National Sustainability Commission that develops enforceable national, regional, threat abatement and species-level conservation plans, and a National Environmental Protection Agency that has adequate authority and capacity to check for compliance and enforce environment laws.
- Guaranteed community right and participation in environmental decision-making.
For more information see www.placesyoulove.org