Wildlife Australia Magazine

THERE IS A LOT going on at the moment in the realm of national and international conservation laws and treaties, pathways to ‘agreements’ and international environmental pledges. Let’s look at two potentially seismic examples.

Australia has lifted its gaze with a re-energized national environmental protection focus, by better equipping the 25-year-old EBPC Act to effect action on modern (data-informed) conservation challenges.

It sounds promising, with the creation of a national EPA in mid-2026 to help with compliance and enforcement; a national standards framework that includes the ‘no regression principle’ to ensure future changes will not reduce environmental protections; and the tightening of the ‘continuous use’ land clearing loophole in December 2025 – bringing logging and land clearing into the regular assessment system.

Australia may be off to a promising re-start.

Internationally, the new High Seas Treaty has the simple – but very difficult – goal of protecting ocean life and warding off the exploitation of key ocean habitats from scourges including industrial scale fishing, deep sea mining and civilization’s disastrous pollution.
The treaty is a case of ‘you have to start somewhere, significantly’ but it has almost immediately come under fire for the ‘toothless’ nature of its remedies for errant nation-state behaviour.

According to a new book, The Only Flag Worth Flying, by former Sea Shepherd conservationist Paul Watson and academic Sarah Levy, the burden will likely remain on aggressive non-violent direct action groups like Sea Shepherd to push back against environmental banditry on the high seas.

Watson and Levy argue that despite the proliferation of sea treaties, “enforcement authority remains heavily dependent on state will and capacity”.

But it will take time for nation states to wilfully organise pushback against well-organised – and well-funded – bad environmental behaviour in international waters.