Antinuclear

As Australia’s primary environmental legislation undergoes a once-in-a-decade review, businesses and the government have spoken of the need to cut environmental bureaucracy (so-called “green tape”) and speed up approvals. However, health experts insist that environmental protections must be strengthened.

Why? Because the stark reality is that our health is fundamentally dependent on the health of the natural world – for clean air, water and soils, food security, protection against infectious diseases and a stable climate. Nature is also the source of over half of all medicines we rely on.

Last month, more than 180 health professionals and 19 health groups published an open letter to federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley, warning a failure to significantly reform Australia’s environmental law, the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act), will risk fuelling further public health crises. Signatories included Nobel laureate Professor Peter Doherty, former Australian of the Year Professor Fiona Stanley and nutritionist and dietician Dr Rosemary Stanton.

Despite being a wealthy, developed nation, Australia’s environmental track record is among the worst of all countries. We lead the world in mammal extinctions, have the highest rate of biodiversity loss bar Indonesia, and have been recognised as a land-clearing and deforestation “hotspot”. It is estimated that in Queensland and NSW alone, land clearing kills some 50 million mammals, birds and reptiles annually. Our scarce water resources are in decline, and some of our most precious marine environments, including the Great Barrier Reef, face collapse. Climate change constitutes one of the most serious threats to our natural environment and our nation’s public health, and yet Australia is one of the highest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gases.