As environmental lawyers, we know the extraordinary power of the law. The power to grant rights, justice and a legal voice. Or to silence and dispossess. We see the consequences of this every day in our work. That’s why we believe it’s an important time for EJA to...
What are savannah woodlands and why do they need protection from bulldozers and big cotton? In February this year, EJA lawyers launched an important court case representing the Environment Centre of the Northern Territory to protect the world’s largest remaining...
Where the Murray River meets the Barmah Lakes in the south-east of this continent, you’ll find the largest river red gum forest in the world. This is Yorta Yorta country – cared for by traditional custodians since time immemorial. But recent actions by a pro-feral...
For a long time, Victorian Aboriginal communities have engaged in debates around water and advocated for their water rights. In this drought-prone state, crisscrossed by rivers and wetlands, water is hotly contested by irrigators, cities and ecologists. Unlike other...
For thousands of years Aboriginal peoples have understood and supported natural water regimes and their ecological importance. The imposition of the western legal system created numerous barriers to the ongoing custodial relationship with water and waterways. Across...
My name is Jacob, the Aboriginal Engagement Officer at Environmental Justice Australia. I will be writing a series of blog posts throughout my time here as I aim to tell my story and also discuss some interesting topics in regard to my work and involvement in...
The following is a lecture given at Duke University in the United States by Senior Specialist Lawyer Dr Bruce Lindsay. The intersecting space of environmental law and First Nations’ justice in our country is part of a wider canvas which relates to structural and...
Lawyers at Environmental Justice Australia have today lodged a complaint at the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission to stop a brumby preservation group from racially vilifying Monica Morgan, a senior member of the Yorta Yorta Nation. The Barmah...
For tens of thousands of years, First Nations people have cared for Country and depended on healthy and flowing rivers – rivers that lived and breathed according to natural cycles. Colonisation and decades of mismanagement and overextraction have left Australia’s...
As an organisation advocating for a legal system with equality at its core, we are incredibly disappointed that our laws and the police who enforce them have failed First Nations communities. The lack of accountability for the 437 deaths in police custody must be...
The Water Act is ‘substantially inconsistent’ with Australia’s commitments to international conventions, a Traditional Owner group has told the South Australian Royal Commission into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations...
EJA's response to the landmark Uluru Statement from the Heart. On 26 May 2017 delegates representing First Nations from all over Australia concluded and published the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The Statement was the outcome of deliberations of more than 250...
Rivers, wetlands, waterways, springs and estuaries play important and powerful roles in the ancient places and cultures of Australia. They are frequently central to creation stories and to Aboriginal law/lore. Not only was this knowledge and law profoundly affected by...