ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the primary focus of environmental law on preventing future loss and remediating immediate past harm is an impediment to ambitious restoration of the vast biological wealth that has been lost due to human activities. It argues that environmental laws are, in one very important respect, insufficiently focused on future threats. The chapter analyses Australia as a case study and proposes legal reform to support climate adaptation and ecological ‘renewal’ in terrestrial environments. Ongoing biodiversity decline and the emerging threat of climate change render the task of improving Australia’s laws for restoring ecological health, function and climate-adapted habitat increasingly urgent. The chapter provides renewal ecology, to inform legal reform that facilitates biodiversity adaptation as the climate changes. It highlights growing recognition of the importance of anthropogenic landscapes, human values and human engagement in restoration success. The chapter describes the imperative to account for climate change in ecological restoration law and practice.
