United community advocacy in Australia has achieved landmark environmental law reforms – Inside track

This post is by Alexia Wellbelove, campaigns director at the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS)

Australia is globally admired for its extraordinary natural heritage. But beneath the beauty, all has not been well.

The latest Australian State of the Environment Report 2021 delivered a stark warning: climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and resource extraction are placing mounting pressure on ecosystems. Cumulative impacts are amplifying these threats and accelerating decline. And abrupt ecological collapses have already been recorded. Australia now holds the dubious distinction of being a global leader in mammal extinctions and deforestation.

After more than a decade of campaigning for stronger national environment laws, 2025 marked a breakthrough. Reform finally arrived, imperfect, hard won, but significant. Here’s how we got there.

Why Australia’s nature laws matter
Australia’s environmental protections operate through a complex system. Each state and territory has its own environmental legislation, while the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) sits above them, safeguarding ‘matters of national environmental significance’, Australia’s most important natural and cultural values.

These include (but are not limited to) threatened species and ecological communities, Ramsar wetlands, world and national heritage places and water resources.

The federal layer is crucial. Species and ecosystems don’t follow or respect state borders, so the EPBC Act helps provide national oversight on developments with potential to have significant impact on these values and importantly deliver co-ordinated recovery of threatened species and habitats. The act also ensures Australia meets international commitments under agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention and the World Heritage Convention.

In theory, it’s a strong system. In practice, it’s been failing. Between 2018 and 2022, almost 700,000 hectares of vegetation were cleared in catchments flowing into the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef, contributing to sediment pollution and declining water quality in one of the world’s most iconic ecosystems.

Organisations collaborated to defend environmental laws
Created in 1999, the EPBC Act was built for a different era. Two independent ten year statutory reviews found it outdated, overly focused on process, riddled with loopholes, poorly enforced and failing not only to protect and recover habitats and species, but also to prevent harm before it happens.

In 2013, extractive industries and business groups pushed to devolve federal environmental approval powers to state and territory governments. But they are often both the proponent and assessor of projects. ‘Devolution’ of these powers removes the national ‘check and balance’ layer, a serious concern given conflicts of interest and declining environmental outcomes.

In response, environmental organisations formed the Places You Love alliance to defend the laws. Twice, under both Labor and Conservative governments, we successfully blocked efforts to weaken them.

The alliance has since grown to more than 80 organisations, covering a broad range of expertise. As we grew, so did our expectations of what the laws should deliver, and our campaign evolved from defending laws to demanding strong new ones.

We called for legally enforceable National Environmental Standards to stop destruction before it starts, proper funding for habitat restoration and species recovery, an independent National Environment Protection Agency (EPA), closure of loopholes such as those enabling deforestation in reef catchments, constraints on ministerial discretion and the mandatory consideration of climate impacts.

In 2022, following a strong, unified campaign by the Places You Love alliance, the newly elected Labor government under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese committed to update the EPBC Act for the first time in 20 years.

Draft ‘nature positive’ legislation was released in 2023, and hundreds of pages of draft legal prose were shared in closed ‘lock-up’ sessions, attended by state and territory governments, industry and NGOs.

The Nature Positive Bills were introduced into parliament in 2024, and industry backlash was immediate and intense. In the final days of parliament, amid heavy corporate lobbying and political pressure, especially from the Western Australian premier, the prime minister reneged and ruled out passing the legislation.

2025 was a breakthrough moment
With the Nature Positive Bills taken off the parliamentary agenda in early 2025, a new environment minister took the helm after the May 2025 federal election. Thanks to ongoing advocacy, a sharpened message and an alignment of political stars, there was new impetus and environmental law reform became the government’s top legislative priority post-election.

A scaled back reform package passed in the final days of the 2025 parliamentary session. Whilst still proposing a National Environmental Protection Agency and national environmental standards, the government reverted to amending the existing act rather than the much needed wholescale review and reform promised by new laws.

Although not perfect, NGOs supported the reforms to get them over the line, and continue to work on broader issues not tackled in the 2025 package. The reforms delivered two critical outcomes for the Great Barrier Reef: clearing of vegetation over 15 years old in reef catchments now requires federal approval and vegetation along watercourses can’t be cleared without federal oversight. This was a major win. Reducing tree clearing means reducing sediment pollution, a major stressor on inshore coral reefs that communities, tourism operators and marine wildlife rely on.

While there were compromises, the 2025 reforms marked the most significant update to the EPBC Act in a generation. My organisation, AMCS, noted it as a landmark moment for Australia’s ocean, coasts and marine wildlife, and one we should celebrate. We also recognise it was only possible because of sustained public pressure, reminding us of the important role of long term community advocacy in significant policy wins.

This reform package raises the bar nationally and strengthens oversight of projects affecting threatened species and habitats. But, it is not the end of the story. Climate change is still not fully embedded in national environmental decision making, threatened species recovery provisions require further reform and industrial expansion continues to put pressure on vulnerable ecosystems.

The new National Environment Protection Agency will begin operating on 1 July 2026. Proper resourcing will be critical, and strong standards on paper will mean little without enforcement.

Now the focus shifts to implementation. We didn’t win everything we wanted, but we achieved meaningful change in the face of enormous opposition, proving what sustained, united campaigning can accomplish.

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash