From the far north Kimberley to the southern forests, from remnant Perth bushland to the Great Western Woodlands, the Environmental Defender’s Office WA (EDO WA) has helped protect WA’s amazing environment for over 20 years.
EDO WA is only environmental community legal centre in WA, working with communities to defend the environment through law.
Currently, we receive no government funding, and instead rely on private financial support to continue helping communities protect and conserve WA’s beautiful and fragile environment.
Your support is vital to ensuring that we can continue to provide access to justice to communities in WA seeking to protect the environment for future generations.
What will we do?
With your help, EDO WA will be addressing the following key priorities in 2017:
- Protection of WA’s biodiversity – advising and advocating for better protection of WA’s biodiversity through existing legislation.
- State-based action on climate change – identifying and promoting the pathways for the State to take better account of national and international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- Law reform – working on several exciting law reform projects to strengthen WA’s environmental laws and protect the State’s biodiversity.
Who is EDO WA?
Operating independently since 1996, the EDO WA is a not-for-profit community legal centre specialising in public interest environmental law.
We provide free or low-cost environmental legal services to communities across WA to defend the environment and promote environmental protection through law.
We do this by:
- Providing legal advice to communities and, if required, representing them in tribunals and courts;
- Hosting community workshops and producing easy to understand guides to environmental laws, to enable the public to navigate the complex legal system and better participate in environmental management and decisions; and
- Contributing expert input to government and non-government law reform initiatives designed to protect the environment and to strengthen the legal system.
In 2014 and 2015 the EDOWA’s Commonwealth and State funding was completely removed.
This has negatively impacted upon the work we do.
We now rely solely on community financial and volunteer support to continue to provide our vital services and to ensure we are ready to respond when our help is required.
What have we delivered so far?
We have had many successes along the way:
- EDO Counsel acted in the successful WA Supreme Court case that led to the overturning of approval of the massive James Price Point gas development near Broome;
- Assisting community groups in stopping a coal mine project near Margaret River;
- Acting in the Mining Warden’s Court to expand the public’s right to object to mining tenements on environmental grounds;
- Representing a Nyikina Traditional Custodian of the Lower Fitzroy River in the Kimberley to prevent coal mining;
- Representing several conservation groups opposing mining projects in the magnificent Helena Aurora Range;
- Representing a Yawuru Traditional Custodian of country in and around Broome against a fracking project; and
- Providing expert legal advice to government on a range of environmental and public interest legal issues; including the public right to protest, biodiversity conservation legislation, landcare law, water law reform and much more.
How can you support WA’s legal voice for the environment?
We need your help to deliver better outcomes for WA’s environment.
You can help us defend the environment today by doing one or more of the following:
- Making a financial contribution towards this crowdfunding campaign or become a regular donor here. Every dollar you can give is tax deductible and counts towards protecting those precious places in WA.
- Becoming a Member of the EDOWA here, which will give you access to e-newsletters, information on the work we do and the right to attend our Annual General Meeting.
- Sharing this page with your friends, family and work colleagues by email, social media or word of mouth and encouraging them to support the work we do.
Please help us to defend the environment today – every dollar you can give counts towards protecting those precious places in WA that we all love and want to protect for future generations.
Without your contribution, the protection of our environment through actions like those listed above would not be possible.
Thanks for reading,
The EDOWA Team