COMMENTS ON DRAFT NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT: BIODIVERSITY BILL 2024

The comments are submitted jointly by the EMS Foundation and by the Wild Law Institute

We strongly support the enactment of the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Bill (“the Bill”) but believe that the Bill requires strengthening in several important respects in order to enable it to provide an appropriate framework for conservation and to provide the legal tools necessary to respond effectively to foreseeable challenges. Consequently, this document proposes a number of amendments to the Bill in order to strengthen it, and explains the reasons for each amendment proposed. 

Our principal concerns are summarised in the executive summary. The reasons for our concerns and how they could be resolved, are explained more fully below . We begin by proposing some additional definitions and amendments to current definitions because these have a bearing on our subsequent comments and suggestions. We begin with an overview of our main comments on the Bill. We then explain what we see as the key issues and why it is important that the Bill addresses them, and propose amendments to address these issues. We include miscellaneous additional comments on the Bill in the final section. 

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