What do EJA do?

EJA use they legal and campaign expertise to empower communities, enforce our environment laws in court, and drive vital legal and policy reforms that fix the system where it is failing.

Their lawyers act on behalf of people and community organisations to safeguard health; to protect magnificent forests, rivers and wildlife; and to tackle climate change. We partner with communities and other social justice organisations because we are stronger together. 

Using innovative approaches, they find the best legal solutions to environmental issues. Their team works inside and outside the courtroom to make the system fair and just for all. They work on issues and in areas of Australia where we can have the most impact. 

Why is this work important?

We are facing a climate and extinction crisis and disadvantaged communities bear the brunt of environmental harm. Our current legal system does not deliver environmental justice, protection of the natural environment or preservation of the systems that give us life. It gives protection and access to privileged groups, it doesn’t value nature inherently, it gives corporate Australia enormous power and it denies nature and vulnerable people a voice. The ‘legal system’ is the laws themselves, the way they are made (by politicians and bureaucrats), and the way laws are applied and enforced by government and the courts.

To address this problem, we need to:

• Change the way laws are made

• Change the content of laws so they value, restore and protect nature, climate and communities

• Reform the application and enforcement of the law by changing the power balance - increasing the power of the community, particularly First Nations voices and young people, and decreasing the power of corporations seeking to do harm.

How is Groundswell supporting this work?

In their 2021-2024 Strategic Plan, EJA have committed to facilitate a just transition to clean energy for a safe climate. They will do this through using our legal expertise, building community power, holding governments to account and working to fix the justice system.

With Groundswell’s support, the project will focus on the following actions over the next three years:

• Ensure the full force of the law is applied to climate damaging fossil fuel facilities, with a focus on coal export mines and power stations.

• Challenge government decisions to use public funding for climate damaging fossil fuel projects on behalf of clients.

• Achieve a 'fair share' Paris climate target for Australia via public advocacy and litigation for youth clients.

• Launch an Energy Justice initiative that uses legal strategies to achieve energy market settings that ensure low polluting, low emissions intensive and affordable energy for all.

2021-22 will see EJA launch litigation off the back of this years’ groundwork. We will sharpen our split of work between embedded one-off action for the movement, and larger strategic litigation and advocacy. We plan to file at least two pieces of test case litigation, including at least one case that, if successful, will expand the litigation tool kit available to the movement to drive climate action.

We will partner with affected communities to tell a compelling story about why the cases and issues matter. We are focused on building genuine partnerships with young people most acutely affected by climate harms, including young First Nations advocates and people with disability.

Grant update

Over the last 12 months, thanks to your support, our climate team has launched the Living Wonders legal intervention, a national action, on behalf of our client, Environment Council of Central Queensland.

Using a rarely utilised mechanism of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, our client, the Environment Council of Central Queensland has asked the Federal

Environment Minister to reconsider 19 coal and gas proposals. For all these proposals, previous Environment Ministers did not identify climate harm as a risk to matters of national environmental significance.

Under the Act, the Minister must safeguard animal and plant species at risk of extinction, as well as places of deep significance for First Nations people, World Heritage sites, National Parks, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, internationally significant wetlands, and marine environments.

Our request was accompanied by a vault of the best scientific evidence and expert analysis on the detrimental effects of climate change from new coal and gas developments on Matters of National Environmental Significance – the Australian species and places under her watch.

We are arguing that Australia’s Environment Minister has a responsibility to consider the immense and indisputable risks of harm from climate damage, posed by new coal and gas proposals, on Australia’s living wonders. It is our client’s hope, which we share, that this legal intervention stands to radically reshape how Australian law accounts for the reality of climate change and its impact on the Australian environment.

On behalf of our client, we have provided Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek with evidence from 3000 documents and spreadsheets, documenting the direct and indirect impacts of climate change. For the first time, detailed fire maps demonstrate the devastating impact of climate-fueled bushfire on the species and places under the environment minister’s watch.

Much of this evidence comes from thousands of research papers by scientists the Australian government pays, doing research it commissions and authorises, in reports it publishes. This evidence paints a grim picture of the current and projected climate risks to thousands of matters of national environmental significance.

We have made the full evidence available to the public online at livingwonders.org.au. Also available is an explanation of the intervention, the targeted proposals, and ways for the public to take action.

Having submitted the reconsideration requests to the Minister in July, we had to wait to hear from the Minister. In August, the minister proposed to reject one project, Palmer's Central Queensland Coal proposal, citing it would likely have 'unacceptable impacts' on Great Barrier Reef.

Then, in early in November, Minister Plibersek announced she accepted our client's Living Wonders legal intervention as valid and will reassess the remaining 18 coal and gas proposals currently awaiting federal approval. These proposals include Woodside’s North West Shelf and Whitehaven’s Narrabri mine – but each proposal will have a vast and irreversible impact on our climate and devastate thousands of nationally significant animals, plants, and places.

All 18 proposals are currently open for public comment until 24 November.

This is huge news as until now, Australia's environment ministers have completely neglected to consider this. During the public comment stage, we will be supporting our client to work with community and campaign partners to call on the people and organisations around the country to make submissions on the environmental impact of all 18 fossil fuel projects.

We are so excited to be at this point and thank you for getting us this far with your generous support. e believe this is the first time in Australian history that an Environment Minister has accepted a climate-focused reconsideration request as valid.

We represented 17-year-old Ava Shearer, to oppose Clive Palmer’s proposed Central Queensland Coal mine because of the impact it would have on the Great Barrier Reef. Ava worked as a snorkelling instructor living in Port Douglas and was deeply concerned about the impact the new coal mine will have on the reef. The legal letter draws the Minister’s attention tothe findings of the landmark Sharma decision which found the Environment Minister owed a duty of care to children who may suffer catastrophic harm from the climate crisis.

At the time of writing, the Environment Minister announced she intends to refuse the development application, noting our client’s opposition among the groundswell of opposition informing her refusal due to its impact on the Great Barrier Reef.

To learn more about EJA’s impact, read our interview with lawyer Hollie Kerwin.

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