Conventional environmental laws have allowed Adani’s Carmichael coal mine go forward in Australia. It’s time we changed them.
This article by Michele Maloney and Mari Margil was published in the Earth Island Journal on August 5th, 2019.
Recently, groundwater extraction permits were granted for the controversial Carmichael coal mine project in Queensland, Australia. With that approval, Adani, the Indian company proposing the mine, will likely receive its final federal permit approvals, and mining will begin apace.
For all of the dedicated activism opposing the mine, which will be the largest coal mine in the country, and despite the many reasons why the mine will be destructive for people and the planet, under the existing legal system, approval of the mine was predictable.
Environmental laws in Australia, as in much of the world, are written to legally permit practices such as coal mining, which bring known environmental harm, rather than legally prohibit them.
In the countries where we live, Australia and the United States, as well as in countries around the world, environmental laws legalize mining. They legalize extraction of coal-seam gas. They legalize animal factory farming, industrial scale land clearing for agriculture, logging of native forests, and on and on.
Through environmental laws, governments permit and legalize the “use” of the environment — including land, water, air, plants, and species. The approval process for Adani’s mine grants legal permission to the company to use nature.
Environmental laws are able to authorize the use and exploitation of nature, and the resulting environmental harm, because our legal systems do not recognize that nature has an inherent right to exist or to well-being. The approval of the Carmichael mine is proof of this, and the need for a fundamental reorientation of the legal system.
(To read the rest of this article at its original source please click HERE.)