💧 #BREAKING: First Nations launch legal challenge against Commonwealth over consultation failures in Murray-Darling Water Resource Plan
EDO is proud to represent Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations (@MLDRIN), a confederation of 20+ Murray-Darling Basin First Nations.
Basin Nations have cultural and moral obligations to care for Country, including all waterways.
Activating their rights and knowledge systems will be critical to achieving healthy Country in the Murray-Darling Basin.
#waterislife #mdb #murraydarlingbasin
To be able to do that, Basin Nations need to be properly consulted on the laws, regulations and plans that everyone in the system must abide by, and Basin Nations need to be listened to.
#waterislife #mdb #murraydarlingbasin #waterlaw
The NSW Fractured Rock Water Resource Plan is one of the plans crucial to the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
@MLDRIN repeatedly raised objections to the consultation process that informed the plan.
The plan was accredited by the Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek in November 2022 on the recommendation of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, after it was submitted by the former NSW Coalition Government.
#murraydarlingbasin #mdb #auspol
@MLDRIN says the affected Nations were not properly consulted, including about their social, cultural + spiritual values of the water resources.
As a result, @MLDRIN will ask the Federal Court to rule that the Environment Minister’s accreditation of the plan is legally invalid.
If successful, @MLDRIN will call on NSW authorities to undertake proper consultation with Basin Nations to ensure all the state’s water resource plans meet Basin Plan requirements.
BREAKING: Six Tiwi elders have submitted an urgent application to Minister Tanya Plibersek to make a declaration to protect sacred Tiwi cultural heritage, which they say is at immediate risk of desecration from the construction of a pipeline for Santos’s Barossa Gas Project.
Santos has announced that it intends to begin work on the pipeline as soon as this Wednesday, despite being aware of Tiwi concerns that it will traverse an area of significant underwater cultural heritage.
The application to Minister Tanya Plibersek under the ATSIHP Act requests the Minister to make a special declaration to prevent serious and immediate harm to significant underwater cultural sites in the Timor Sea, where Santos is intending to develop the Barossa Gas Project.
#BREAKING: We're challenging the approval of a dangerous new coal seam gasfield
With up to 530 wells across more than 1,000ha of bushland, the gasfield could damage community groundwater, fuel climate change, jeopardise human rights and harm threatened wildlife.
Coal seam gas is a risky, invasive form of unconventional gas mining.
Our client, Environmental Advocacy in Central Queensland, is concerned the @QldGov approved Blue Energy's new gasfield without a thorough environmental impact assessment.
Blue Energy will drill to a depth of almost 1.2km, penetrating and potentially contaminating or draining several freshwater aquifers.
The company’s own modelling shows more than 19 billion litres of water will be extracted over the two-decade life of this proposed gasfield.
#BREAKING: We’re seeking an urgent injunction to save koalas
About a week ago, NSW Forestry Corporation started logging in areas of vital koala habitat in north east NSW.
The forests were hit hard by the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires and are home to dozens of threatened species including koalas and southern greater gliders.
With the #koala on a sharp trajectory to #extinction in NSW, our client the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) says logging the fire-affected Myrtle and Braemar state forests should be unthinkable.
In response to a recent 15-month custodial sentence, with a non-parole period of 8 months, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Association and Peaceful Assembly expressed alarm, stating that “Peaceful protesters should never be criminalised or imprisoned.”
Harsh new anti-protest laws were rushed through NSW parliament in April, without consultation.
The laws were a knee-jerk response to escalating climate protests around roads, rail and ports.
#BREAKING: Tiwi Traditional Owner Dennis Tipakalippa has had his historic win over Santos’ Barossa Gas Project upheld by the Full Federal Court of Australia!
Today's decision sends a message to all gas companies that they cannot sideline First Nations peoples.
More to come.
“We want the whole world to hear our voice.”
“We want the whole world to see our power.”
“We have fought to protect our sea country from the beginning to the end and we will never stop fighting.”
- Tiwi Traditional Owner Dennis Tipakalippa
“Our sea is like our mother - we are part of the sea and the sea is part of us. Santos and every other gas company must take note that this is our country and we must be consulted,” Tiwi Traditional Owner Dennis Tipakalippa said.
🎉#BREAKING: @YouthVerdict and @BimbleboxNR just won their historic legal challenge to Clive Palmer's proposed Galilee Coal Project on environmental, climate and human rights grounds!
Almost three years ago, our clients launched their groundbreaking case against a dangerous, climate-polluting coal mine proposal.
It's the first time a coal mine has been challenged on human rights grounds in Australia.
Today, President Fleur Kingham of the Queensland Land Court recommended that Waratah Coal’s application for the project should be rejected by the resources and environment ministers.