Saving the Condamine from a feedlot

This 2011-12 law reform campaign is a small part of the social justice advocacy EDO has conducted for nearly 20 years on behalf of disadvantaged communities affected by development and resource extraction.

The precautionary principle is one of the most important foundations of ecologically sustainable development. It is a commonsense principle requiring that a lack of scientific certainty should not be used to postpone measures to prevent serious or irreversible harm to the environment.

In February 1994 the Council of Australian Governments released its water policy, which emphasised that new legislation for water should provide for ecological needs.

Flying-fox case 1 stopped large-scale electrocution of flying-foxes, was the first to use third party rights under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and clarified important concepts in the Act.

You might ask, what is it about bats that they have featured in so many court battles? Environmentalists have brought at least six cases to protect bats. Perhaps lawyers have a secret fondness for them given the bat-like appearance of barristers in flappy black court regalia?

In 1989 an environment group tried to stop a cement company destroying caves in which rare (now threatened) ghost bats roosted.

Gold Coast environmentalists represented by EDO Qld protected a rainforest site teeming with rare and threatened wildlife by challenging a proposed development. Sometimes, the environment wins even when a court case is lost. 

The landmark Nathan Dam case run by EDO Qld in 2003 (with an appeal in 2004) ensured that federal assessment of a proposed dam in Central Queensland would include the potential for pollution of the World Heritage Area due to agriculture enabled by the dam.

EDO Qld represented Queensland Conservation who sought to have climate change impacts taken into account in the assessment of a giant coal mine. This case was the first step in an ongoing effort to compel governments to account for climate change impacts when assessing carbon-polluting developments.