Environmental law reform needed to manage trade of Australia’s threatened marine species

Abstract

Australia is reforming its ineffective Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which currently allows the export of four threatened species listed under the Act along with additional species recognized as globally threatened. We propose three recommendations for the new legislation: (1) apply the same precautions to commercially harvested species as other threatened species; (2) mandate annual reviews of threatened species status; and (3) assess species listed on global conservation conventions.