The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, has conceded that successive governments acted unlawfully by failing to create mandatory recovery plans for native species threatened with extinction. The concession came as part of a court settlement with the Wilderness Society, which launched legal proceedings in March seeking to compel the minister to make recovery plans for species including the greater glider and the ghost bat.
In the settlement reached on Friday, the government agreed that recovery plans for four threatened species—the greater glider, the ghost bat, the lungfish, and the sandhill dunnart—had not been made and that successive ministers had exceeded the timeframe required for their creation. The government also agreed that recovery plans for seven other threatened species, including the baudin’s and carnaby’s black cockatoos, which were previously said to have expired, would remain in force.
Recovery plans set out actions needed to bring species back from the brink of extinction. Under Australia’s national environmental laws, the environment minister decides whether a species requires a recovery plan, and if so, the plan must usually be made within three years. Once enacted, the minister must not make decisions contrary to its goals.
The Wilderness Society’s legal action followed long-standing concerns about a backlog of unfinished plans. An auditor general’s report in 2022 found only 2% of recovery plans had been completed within their statutory timeframe since 2013. In 2022, freedom of information documents revealed that 372 recovery plans covering 575 species and ecosystems were due to expire by the end of 2023.
Sam Szoke-Burke, biodiversity policy and campaign manager at the Wilderness Society, said the legal victory set an important precedent. “The government now knows that when the law says the minister must do something, that doesn’t mean maybe,” he said. Ellen Maybery, a lawyer at Environmental Justice Australia, added: “For decades, successive governments have failed to follow their own laws. The court has now compelled the environment minister to do his job.”
