\u201cToday is a win for threatened wildlife across Australia. After decades of neglect by government after government, we took to the courts to fight for Australia\u2019s pride and joy \u2013 its diverse and world-important environment,\u201d the Wilderness Society biodiversity policy and campaign manager, Sam Szoke-Burke, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe resolution of this case provides much-needed certainty for Australia\u2019s iconic plants and animals, some of whom have been waiting for over a decade for a legally required recovery roadmap to give them a better chance at surviving extinction.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The secret life of greater gliders: sneezes, squabbles and a brand-new baby \u2013 video<\/p>\n
Recovery plans set out actions needed to bring species back from the brink of extinction and put them on a better trajectory.<\/p>\n
Under Australia\u2019s national environmental laws, the environment minister decides whether a species requires a recovery plan or not. If the minister decides a species does require one, the plan must usually be made within three years.<\/p>\n
Once a recovery plan is enacted, the minister must not make decisions that would be considered contrary to its goals and actions.<\/p>\n
The Wilderness Society\u2019s legal action followed long-held concerns about a backlog of unfinished and undeveloped plans for species including the greater glider, which has required a recovery plan since 2016 but has no plan in place.<\/p>\n
Years of reporting by Guardian Australia<\/a> has highlighted the failure by successive governments to make recovery plans within the required time frames. An auditor general\u2019s report in 2022<\/a> found only 2% of recovery plans had been completed within their statutory timeframe since 2013.<\/p>\n In 2020 the federal environment department told a Senate estimates<\/a> hearing that 170 plants, animals and habitats were waiting for recovery plans.<\/p>\n To reduce the backlog, the previous Coalition government had the threatened species scientific committee reassess whether some species still required a plan and, in 2022, scrapped the requirement<\/a> for almost 200 plants, animals and habitats.<\/p>\n In 2022, freedom of information documents obtained by Guardian Australia<\/a> revealed concerns within the federal environment department that 372 recovery plans covering 575 species and ecosystems were due to expire by the end of 2023.<\/p>\n Last week before it reached its settlement with the Wilderness Society, the government updated its recovery plans webpage<\/a> to state that recovery plans were exempt from sunsetting.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Szoke-Burke said the legal victory set an important precedent that showed recovery plans were not optional.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government now knows that when the law says the minister must do something, that doesn\u2019t mean maybe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis outcome should set a new tone for how the government treats Australia\u2019s iconic and unique natural environment. It\u2019s time to prioritise nature, or face legal action and further community outcry.\u201d<\/p>\n Ellen Maybery, a lawyer at Environmental Justice Australia which acted for the Wilderness Society in the proceedings, said the win \u201cforces the government to act\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cFor decades, successive governments have failed to follow their own laws and deliver these vital recovery plans. The court has now compelled the environment minister to do his job and make the required plans,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n A government spokesperson said Labor is \u201con track\u201d to deliver recovery plans for the the greater glider, the ghost bat, the lungfish and the sandhill dunnart.<\/p>\n \u201cPlans are currently in their mandatory public consultation period for the Australian lungfish and sandhill dunnart,\u201d they said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cPublic consultation on plans for the greater glider (southern and central) and ghost bat will be conducted well before the agreed timeframe for the plans\u2019 completion.\u201d<\/p>\n The government is investing more than $600m on actions to aid the recovery of threatened species and ecological communities, they added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, has conceded that successive governments acted unlawfully when they failed to create…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-164002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}