Australia’s environmental degradation

"One must ask why the federal government is so comfortable continuing to ignore the wishes of most Australians, and continuing to condemn our life-sustaining environment and wildlife to profound decline and destruction?"

"Experts in biodiversity and environmental law have found major flaws in the draft national standard for matters of national environmental significance.’..Market-driven nature repair projects will not help address this deficit."

"It would be a betrayal of Australia’s most important public good to settle for the mere appearance of action – we deserve the promised serious investment in our collective future." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/18/australias-green-wall-street-is-failing-to-launch-threatened-species-deserve-better-than-the-nature-repair-market
#biodiversity #ecosystems #wildlife #EPBCAct #FastTack #degradation #NatureMarkets #regulation #EnvironmentalNeglect #extractivism

Mining harm and liability

"Brazil’s worst environmental disaster unleashed a wave ​of toxic sludge that killed 19 people, left thousands homeless, flooded forests and polluted the length of the Doce River. BHP cannot appeal against ruling it is liable for 2015 dam collapse" >>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2026/may/07/royal-commission-antisemitism-budget-cost-of-living-jim-chalmers-anthony-albanese-tax-islamic-state-families-syria-ntwnfb

Mariana dam disaster >>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_dam_disaster

BHP found liable in transnational claim over Brazil’s Fundão dam collapse >>
https://www.hrlc.org.au/case-summaries/municipio-de-mariana-v-bhp-group/
#mining #extractivism #liability #disaster #pollution #rivers #watercourses #contamination #environment #harm #MiningWaste #TailingsDam

[113-2 | 2025]
"Transformative Changes and Conflicts in the Carpathian Mountains in the Post-Communist Period"

> The #Carpathian #Mountains have experienced substantial changes, with the transition from large-scale natural resource exploitation and processing during the communist era to the closure of most #mines and processing facilities in the post-communist period. This research focuses on a case study from the #ApuseniMountains in the Western Carpathians, which are a well-known site for the exploitation of #subsoil resources, including #gold and #silver deposits, which have been mined there since ancient times.

https://journals.openedition.org/rga/16092
#extractivism

Shorelines receding, worsening storms and coastal erosion. Who pays?

"We've got kilometres and kilometres of coast. So much of our housing [is] built on coastal communities that we are walking into an absolutely existential crisis for some of these regional towns and councils."

"Someone is going to need to pay for the costs of climate change, and at the moment, it is being picked up by taxpayers and ratepayers while these fossil fuel companies make huge profits."

"Companies based in Australia have contributed significantly to the climate crisis, and it's only fair for them to have to pay for some of those costs." >>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-04/bass-coast-council-pushes-fossil-fuel-levy-for-recovery-fund/106624424
#FossilFuels #climate #disasters #coast #beach #erosion #ClimateFinance #mining #extractivism #energy

National environmental standards ?

"Federal government accused of watering down proposal to protect Australia’s threatened species and ecosystems."

“There’s no requirement for these processes to actually deliver the outcomes and objectives expressed in the standard.”

"...Australia’s populations of threatened species had declined, on average, by 50% over the past two decades." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/may/02/federal-government-accused-of-watering-down-proposal-to-protect-australias-threatened-species-and-ecosystems
#biodiversity #ecosystems #wildlife #EPBCAct #destruction #harm #extractivism #extinctions #StreamlineEnvironmentalApprovals #Australia

From Gold Rush to Green Rush
The environmental consequences of cannabis cultivation

* "Professor Kaitlin Reed (Yurok/Hupa/Oneida) argues that the state's booming cannabis industry can be situated squarely within other extractive settler colonial enterprises such as gold mining and overfishing."

“The real gold is not gold, after all, but the land itself”

Kaitlin P. Reed, "Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California" (U Washington Press, 2023) >>
https://read.dukeupress.edu/agricultural-history/article-abstract/100/1/140/407075/Settler-Cannabis-From-Gold-Rush-to-Green-Rush-in?redirectedFrom=fulltext

* Reed "connects California cannabis production to the violence and dispossession of Indigenous land and people."

"Young countercultural back-to-the-land settlers flocked to northwestern California beginning in the 1960s, and by the 1970s, unregulated cannabis production proliferated on Indigenous lands."
https://www.degruyterbrill.com/de/document/doi/10.1515/9780295751573/html

#cannabis #extractivism #agriculture #logging #overfishing #BackToTheLand #counterculture #GreenIdyll #SettlerSociety #GoldRush #GreenRush #CannabisIndustry #water #pollution #disposession #FirstNationsPeoples #IndigenousPeoples
Image: Country idyll with river

Foreign companies are making billions off Australia’s gas. It’s time that changed

"While the gas is extracted from beneath Australian soils, the profits go almost entirely to large multinational companies. Research suggests gas companies have made roughly $A149 billion from exports in just four years. Only a small percentage of this profit has been taxed."

"That’s why some politicians, think tanks and environmental groups are pushing for a 25% tax on gas exports.For decades, we’ve allowed foreign companies to earn billions of dollars from our gas sector, and to be taxed very little." >>

https://theconversation.com/foreign-companies-are-making-billions-off-australias-gas-its-time-that-changed-281010
#extractivism #OilandGas #FossilFuels #Tax #SubimperialEnforcer #education #austerity #HealthCare #cutbacks #CuttingCosts #Australia #NDIS

WaterNSW criticised for ‘appalling’ decision after hundreds of turtles left to die in wetlands

"Environmental flows refer to water released by the government from dams and tributaries into rivers and ecosystems to restore their health. The Gingham watercourse is home to three turtle species, the broad-shelled turtle, the Murray River turtle and the eastern long-necked turtle."

"Cutmore said she was “not happy with what’s gone down” and was concerned irrigators were “calling the shots over and over”.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/21/water-nsw-criticised-for-appalling-decision-after-hundreds-of-turtles-left-to-die-in-wetlands
#biodiversity #turtles #wetland #EnvironmentalFlows #irrigation #cotton #NSW #wildlife #water #extractivism