Environment

A native title group has won an appeal to the High Court over a 30-year licence granted by the Northern Territory government to Fortune Agribusiness to extract groundwater for irrigation on its property.

By the time Australia's emissions targets were set in 2015, the effects of climate change were already being felt in the Torres Strait, the Commonwealth has told an appeals court, saying a class action over Islanders' cultural loss can't prove causation.

The law of negligence should be expanded to recognise cultural loss as a compensable form of harm, a group of Torres Strait Islanders argue in challenging a ruling tossing their class action against the government.

Hotly contested political issues should not be considered a judicial "no-go zone" that leaves policy decisions on climate change outside the reach of the courts, a landmark class action has told an appeals court.

A local council can't prevent owners at three residential apartments from building a seawall at The Entrance to guard against damage from coastal erosion, with a judge finding the visual impact was limited to when the beach was fully eroded. 

Gas giant Woodside has hit back at claims by activist groups that the federal environment minister's department "negotiated" with the company ahead of approving a 40-year extension to its North West Shelf project.

Activist group Friends of Australian Rock Art have alleged environment and water minister Murray Watt "cherry picked" potential economic and social benefits of Woodside's North West Shelf project while ignoring the harms.

Communications between the environment minister's department and Woodside over the gas company's controversial North West Shelf project raised concerns about the apprehension of bias, activist group Australian Conservation Foundation has told a trial judge.

Waste management company Renex has filed court proceedings seeking to overturn an environmental prosecution, alleging the EPA's investigator was not properly authorised to bring the case. 

Allens has welcomed a globally recognised climate change lawyer and her team of four to the firm, amid an expected uptick in greenwashing and directors' duty claims.