What are our living wonders? They are the many uniquely Australian animals, plants, places and ecosystems that are special to out enjoyment, our health and our tourism economy. The Living Wonders legal intervention is the work of another small conservation group, Environment Council of Central Queensland (ECoCeQ), with expert legal assistance from Environmental Justice Australia. They asked the federal Environment Minister to reconsider the climate change impacts of 19 coal and gas proposals across Australia based on a rarely used section of Australia’s environmental legislation. Historically, only local impacts have been considered when assessing the impacts to matters of national environmental significance. The Living Wonders legal argument is that it doesn’t matter where the greenhouse gas emissions come from, they do impact on all the Living Wonders. EnvA is not leading this campiagn, but we are providing support and doing what we can to help protect Central Queensland’s living wonders from new and expanding coal and gas.
The Living Wonders website has lots of information about the legal intervention and it is a great source of information about the impacts of climate change on our threatened plants, animals and habitats. The reconsideration request was successful with the Australian Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek agreeing to reconsider 18 of the 19 projects subject to this intervention. Central Queensland Coal was not included as the refusal decision was imminent due to the significant direct impacts to the Great Barrier Reef. So far, two of the projects have been withdrawn by the proponents including the Valeria coal proposal in Central Queensland, two CQ proposals have been cancelled by the Minister, and hence we await the reconsideration outcome of the remaining projects. Thursday 11 May. In disappointing news, the Minister has decided that three of the fossil projects can proceed to assessment without having to consider the climate impacts on our Living Wonders. For Central Queensland, this means that the Ensham Life of Mine Extension Coal project is likely to be approved. We can only hope that this is not a sign of the direction for the remaining 11 projects under reconsideration of their climate change impacts.