Green group launches court bid to block Great Australian Bight drilling

The Wilderness Society has launched a high-stakes legal bid, backed by local government and traditional owners, to overturn federal environmental approval for deep-sea oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight.

The Wilderness Society has launched court action in the Federal Court in
an effort to overturn the decision to allow Norwegian company Equinor
 to conduct drilling in the Great Australian Bight. 

The group filed documents in the Federal Court in Adelaide last week, challenging the federal regulator's decision to grant conditional approval to Norwegian energy company Equinor to take part in deep-sea oil exploration about 400 kilometres off the South Australian coast.

Read the story from The Age by Bianca Hall - “Green group launches court bid to block Great Australian Bight drilling.”

Heritage forests face worst bushfire crisis in decades

Fires burning across Tasmania are producing the worst crisis the world heritage forests there have faced in decades, says a long-term conservationist from the area.

Bushfires in Tasmania's heritage
forests worst crisis in decades.

Geoff Law, formerly a conservationist at the Wilderness Society, told Guardian Australia: “In my opinion – and I’ve been working on these issues since 1981 – it’s the gravest crisis the world heritage area has faced in that time.”

“As we speak there are areas burning inside the world heritage area, on the central plateau, where there are ancient species of native pine, which are very slow-growing and up to 1,000 years old,” Law said. “Some of those are being killed as we speak.”

For many Australian forests, fire was a natural part of the ecology. But that was not the case for all of the areas now being threatened in Tasmania, Law said.

Read The Guardian story - “Tasmanian bushfires 'worst crisis in decades' for world heritage forests.”