Global Nature Positive Summit commences while Australia’s nature protection laws remain inadequate

With the inaugural Global Nature Positive Summit having commenced today at ICC Sydney and running until 10th October 2024, environmental groups have spotlighted the need to overhaul Australia’s in effective nature protection laws.

A new YouGov polling has revealed 86% of Australians say the Australian government needs to do more to protect and restore nature. 

Two of Australia’s leading environment organisations, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia (WWF) joined forces to send this message to the Federal government ahead of the Global Nature Positive Summit.

It is also a critical moment in parliament, as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stalls on strengthening the national nature laws by working with the Senate crossbench. 

On 5th October, hundreds participated in Sydney’s ‘March for Nature’ as new research reveals an imminent threat to 10 Australian species.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has spotlighted the Australian Government promised ‘no new extinctions’, but with reform of the ineffective national nature law stalled, the ACF has consulted a range of ecologists and biologists and identified 10 species that are among the most imperilled in the country.

Among the 10 species identified as at serious risk of extinction are Tasmania’s Maugean skate, the Swift parrot, the Regent honeyeater, a small wallaby called the Top End Nabarlek, the Baw Baw frog, Victoria’s grassland earless dragon, the Central rock-rat, the Kangaroo Island assassin spider and two plants, the Tunbridge leek-orchid and the Coffs Harbour fontainea.

ACF nature campaigner Darcie Carruthers shared “without the full reform of Australia’s unfit-for-purpose nature law and no sign of an independent agency to enforce the law, these 10 highly imperilled plants and animals are staring down the barrel of extinction.

“With the stage set for the Global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney, decision makers have a choice. Will they stop the destruction of nature and invest in its repair? 

“Or will Australia continue with the status quo of bulldozing the bush and playing extinction roulette with our threatened species?”  

The Australia Greens have also highlighted that the Global Nature Positive Summit is being held in Sydney despite the recent approval of three massive coal mine expansions and the ongoing logging of the public native forest estate, including the promised Great Koala National Park in NSW.

Greens MP and spokesperson for nature Sue Higginson said "today's summit in Sydney is a scam against NSW, Australia and the global community. The Labor Governments in NSW and Canberra are trashing the climate and nature, while trying to sell this nature positive lie to the world.

"The greatest threat to nature, the environment, and humans, is the rapidly changing climate and we are turbo charging this crisis by mining, exporting and burning coal from NSW. Just two weeks ago, the Federal Labor Government signed off on 3 coal mining projects in NSW in one day, extending the mining of coal for another 30 years. This summit today is a sick and twisted charade from a Labor Party that has been captured by the fossil fuel industry.”

The Australian Government noted that with the 2021 State of the Environment Report revealing a need for significant investment in conservation and restoration to reverse the decline in Australia’s natural environment, the task will take collective action, across government, individual landholders and voluntary private sector investment.

The Australian Government considers The Global Nature Positive Summit as a means to boost private sector investment to protect and repair the Australian environment.

Find out more by visiting the Global Nature Positive Summit website.