Abbott axes legal voice for our environment
The Abbott government’s announcement to suddenly cut the funding of the Environment Defenders Office is a hostile, cowardly and shameless attack on the country’s most respected environmental legal voice.
Funding that was promised by the previous Labor government has been withdrawn and comes at a time when there is an unprecedented and unremitting attack on Australia’s environments from almost every front.
EEG, with the legal help from the EDO recently proved that the state government was breaching its own environment obligations and not protecting threatened species under the FFG Act.
The work of the EDO is critical. For years, when all other avenues of action have failed, the lawyers have been the champions that have protected rare wildlife, saved communities from toxic dumps, and many other important wins.
The EDO has often been the only means that ordinary people have to challenge bad environmental planning and laws being disregarded by governments and developers. Now more than ever the EDO needs to continue its essential work of rescuing Australia’s ailing environments.
There is already talk of using crowd-source funding to help continue their essential work. Go here to help keep their crucial work going … http://www.givenow.com.au/edovic