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🇦🇺 Australia /Environment & Climate

Legal action filed over federal government's land clearing decision

From ABC Australia · () English

Summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources In the courts
  • An environmental group has filed a lawsuit against the federal environment minister in Australia.
  • The group argues the minister unlawfully decided not to assess plans to clear nearly 3,000 hectares of savanna at a Northern Territory station.
  • This land is home to several threatened species, and the organization believes the clearing poses a risk of serious and irreversible harm.

An environmental organization has launched legal action against Australia's federal environment minister, challenging his decision not to require an environmental assessment for clearing nearly 3,000 hectares of tropical savanna. The land in question, located at Claravale Station in the Northern Territory, is a habitat for several threatened species.

unlawful

— Environmental Justice AustraliaDescribing the federal environment minister's decision not to assess land clearing plans.

Environmental Justice Australia, representing the Environment Centre NT, filed documents in the Federal Court seeking a judicial review of the decision made by Environment Minister Murray Watt. The minister had approved Top End Pastoral Company's plans to clear 2,722 hectares for crops earlier this year without mandating an assessment under national environmental laws.

The area slated for clearing is substantial, nearly ten times the size of Sydney's central business district. It provides a home for vulnerable wildlife, including ghost bats, freshwater sawfish, Gouldian finches, and the endangered red goshawk. Claravale Station itself came under scrutiny in 2023 due to allegations of unlawful land clearing, which led to a federal investigation and a subsequent out-of-court settlement with the NT government.

This is a project that our client considers is likely to have a significant impact on a number of different threatened species

— Nicola SilbertSenior lawyer at Environmental Justice Australia, explaining the grounds for the legal action.

Lawyers for the environmental group contend that the clearing poses a risk of "serious and irreversible harm." They argue that the minister failed to consider the impacts on specific threatened species and did not properly apply the precautionary principle, a cornerstone of environmental law. A spokesperson for the federal environment department previously stated that a delegate for the minister determined the proposal was "unlikely to have a significant impact on nationally protected matters" after careful examination, citing project design refinements that reduced potential impacts.

unlikely to have a significant impact on nationally protected matters

— Federal environment department spokespersonJustifying the decision not to require further federal assessment for the land clearing proposal.
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Originally published by ABC Australia. Summarized and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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