Show Your Support for Nature

Dear Prime Minister, Treasurer & Ministers,

We are writing to you as a broad coalition of businesses to ask that you make 2024 the turning point for a nature positive Australia!

This is the year that the Australian Government delivers stronger nature laws to protect and restore nature and biodiversity, an important step towards our global goal for nature.

The business sector is dependent on nature, including our forests, wetlands, oceans, reefs and wildlife.

New laws are needed to help the private sector manage material risk. Strong nature protections help businesses manage biodiversity risk, and provide clear requirements for robust participation in decisions by First Nations and the community to minimise social risk.

A healthy environment is crucial to the well-being of our diverse communities and, for First Nations people, it is also inextricable from culture and identity.

Many of our businesses and sectors including tourism, health, financial services, insurance, food, agriculture, and sports and recreation, directly depend on a healthy nature and thriving ecosystems. For other businesses, while our connection to nature may be less visible, our long–term stability and viability, and the wellbeing of our employees and customers, is at risk when nature is in decline.

In December 2022, following Professor Graeme Samuel’s review, the Government committed to reform Australia’s environmental laws which Professor Samuel described as unfit for purpose.

Your Government has also committed to the Global Biodiversity Framework target to protect 30 per cent of Australia’s lands and waters by 2030, and an additional target of no new plant and animal extinctions by 2032.

While Australia is a place of incredible landscapes and unique wildlife, we currently lead the world in the extinction of mammals and remain a key global contributor to deforestation. Reforming Australia’s nature law is a critical opportunity to halt and reverse nature and biodiversity loss.

We urge the Government to:

• Enact strong and enforceable National Environmental Standards
• Properly fund conservation and restoration, including sufficient resources to ensure the proper implementation and operation of the new national nature laws.
• Create a truly independent Environmental Protection Australia that monitors and enforces these laws and ensures transparency and accountability in decision making.
• Enable a level playing field by applying the laws equally to all companies and sectors.
• In support of the needs of broader society where we run our businesses, give First Nations and the community a fair say in environmental decision-making.
• Support businesses to invest in activities that promote both the economy and nature to thrive.
• Set nature positive outcomes in law according to internationally respected methodologies.

Creating a nature positive Australia will require a joint effort by government and business. We want to see the rulebook written up clearly so that all businesses have certainty and predictability on how we can move forward, while ensuring we meet our goals to protect and restore nature, biodiversity and the places we love. We recognise that Australians expect a healthy natural environment and that social license to operate is linked to our environmental responsibility.

We urge the Albanese Government to introduce strong national laws that will help protect and regenerate our landscapes, put wildlife on a path to recovery, and ensure a better, safer future for all Australians.

Saving nature is everyone’s business. And the time is now.