Earth Island Journal · Recognizing Rights of Great Barrier Reef Could Help Defeat Destructive Coal Mine Project

Conventional environmental laws have allowed Adani’s Carmichael coal mine go forward in Australia. It’s time we changed them.

Michelle Maloney and Mari Margil

This article was first published in Earth Island Journal on August 5, 2019.

Recently, groundwater extraction permits were granted for the controversial Carmichael coal mine project in Queensland, Australia. With that approval, Adani, the Indian company proposing the mine, will likely receive its final federal permit approvals, and mining will begin apace.

Despite years of activism against the controversial Carmichael mine, which will be the largest coal mine in the Australia, Indian company Adani is expected to receive final permit approvals for the project.

For all of the dedicated activism opposing the mine, which will be the largest coal mine in the country, and despite the many reasons why the mine will be destructive for people and the planet, under the existing legal system, approval of the mine was predictable.

Environmental laws in Australia, as in much of the world, are written to legally permit practices such as coal mining, which bring known environmental harm, rather than legally prohibit them.

In the countries where we live, Australia and the United States, as well as in countries around the world, environmental laws legalize mining. They legalize extraction of coal-seam gas. They legalize animal factory farming, industrial-scale land clearing for agriculture, logging of native forests, and on and on.

Through environmental laws, governments permit and legalize the “use” of the environment — including land, water, air, plants, and species. The approval process for Adani’s mine grants legal permission to the company to use nature.

Environmental laws are able to authorize the use and exploitation of nature, and the resulting environmental harm, because our legal systems do not recognize that nature has an inherent right to exist or to well-being. The approval of the Carmichael mine is proof of this, and the need for a fundamental reorientation of the legal system.

Recognizing the need to fundamentally change how we treat nature, the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA), where co-author Michelle Maloney is the convenor, has launched a movement to recognize the legal rights of nature and ecosystems, including the Great Barrier Reef. AELA has created model local, state, and federal laws that would recognize the legal rights of the Great Barrier Reef — including rights to exist, thrive, regenerate, and restoration — and empower local communities and Indigenous custodians to protect nature.

Inspired by the local laws created by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in the US, where co-author Mari Margil is associate director, AELA crafted the model laws to advance the role that local and Indigenous communities need to play, as protectors of the ecosystems in which they live.

Recognition of rights of the Reef would mean that human activities must be consistent and upholding of those rights. This recognizes that not only does the Reef have intrinsic value, but in very practical terms, we need to change our actions to ensure we are not interfering with the very existence of the Reef itself.