Who is responsible for the protection of nature?

13 Mar, 2026

I took a regional train recently, from Melbourne to Ararat. It was interesting watching the landscape change at speed. As you traverse at 100km/hr you see the city become the suburbs, become outer suburbs, become farmland. And it's here in the outer suburbs, the conversation of farmland to suburbia is quite clear, almost procedural.

Start out with farmland: Then build the roads, foundations of houses, footpaths, electrical and drainage systems. Finally the houses, cars and people move in. You have yourself a brand new suburb.

I am sure all these developments have been approved and are not just unregulated. The question I have is who is responsible for protecting nature? Where does the responsibility lie? To protect (in my specific case) the Victorian basalt plain grasslands, and all the plants and animals within these ecosystems. More bluntly, who is at fault when something goes wrong?

Of course there are many actors at play. So much so, I feel like I could make a Bob Dylan song. Instead of 'who killed Davey Moore', it's 'who caused species X into extinction?' or, 'Who killed nature, why and whats the reason for?'.

In this post I will try to outline who has what responsibility, drawing from the various experiences I've had working in some of these roles. Bear in mind, I can only comment on how it's done in the state of Victoria.

The citizens

Nature is after all something we have deemed worthy of protecting. It is the citizens who collectively decide on who we nominate as our representative, what parties comes into power, that ultimately form government. It is up to - no it is the responsibility - of the citizens to determine what issues to focus on and what needs to change.

Crucially citizens are able to drive pressure, protest, make our voices heard.

The protests against the proposed Franklin Dam is perhaps the best example of this. Not only did the protests achieve the goal of preventing the flooding of the Franklin and Gordon River valleys, the protests can be directly linked to three major changes in how we protect nature:

1. Started a precedent with a high court ruling. The high court ruling on the matter widened the Australian Parliament’s scope of power

"The High Court ruled the Australian Parliament could use the powers granted to it in the Constitution to protect wilderness areas in Tasmania under threat from the construction of the dam"

This was the first time the state government was overuled by the federal government in such matters.

2. The high court ruling allowed for the introduction of a new law (the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983).
3. Started a political movement.

It started a political movement. Thousands of concerned citizens protested against the Franklin dam. Bob Brown was one of the leaders of this protest. He then became the founding leader of the Greens party.

All in all it goes to show the flow-on effect (pun not intended). Not only was the initial goal met (to prevent the dam), it was able to generate change on a much greater scale. Both temporally and spatially. In achieving your initial goals, who knows, it may lead to change much greater than even your own aspirations. From little things big things grow as Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly said best.

But I must stress it is the responsibility of the citizens to protest, and demand change. It will then be very clear for those elected (if doing their job), to know what laws need to be proposed, or how to change existing laws. But this is where the responsibility to protect nature moves to the government.

The government

The government are responsible for creating and updating laws. Over the years many different Acts pertain to protecting nature. In Victoria, this kicked off with the Wildlife Act 1975, but environmental protection laws have expanded with the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983, The Flora and Fauna Guarantee (FFG) Act 1988 and the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999. There have also been numerous reviews and amendments over the years.

Trying to defining what exactly nature is, and when it is worthy of protection, is a very hard thing to do. The government determines what is and what is not protected. They have a list of threatened species and ecosystems protected under FFG and EPBC legislation. Why are some species on this list and not others. What is the exact decision process behind this? I am not sure.

If we want to distinguish between native vegetation from cultivated farmland, how can we do this? Further how can we assess the condition of that vegetation? In Victoria, this is what the Vegetation Quality Assessment 2003 - Habitat Hectares Method is all about. Suddenly it's not just black and white, there are grey areas. For example, a 'patch' of native vegetation is legally defined as:

'An area of vegetation where at least 25 per cent of the total perennial understorey plant cover is native'

or

'Any area with three or more native canopy trees where the drip line of each tree touches the drip line of at least one other tree, forming a continuous canopy'

Because that is not convoluted at all. Why should nature protection suddenly stop at 24% cover of native understorey plants? Ecologically this makes no real sense. It can be bewildering to know that currently, a value judgement by one person, the assessor, will determine if we protect nature or not.

In some sense all these definitions and methods are irrelevant, so long as the laws are effective, and achieve what they set out to do. It is the governments responsibility to ensure the laws are effective. I don't want easy work-arounds, loopholes to be continuously exploited. This is why reviews, amendments and reforms are important.

Another key responsibility of the government is to be the regulator. Be the ones enforcing the law, and persecuting those who breach it. Here in Australia, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and DEECA are tasked with this role, but various other government agencies can also issue out fines and halt development.

The developers

These are the easiest to paint as the villain. They can be most directly linked to profiting from the destruction of nature. Do they have a responsibility to protect nature? Yes, definitely they do, but usually they outsource this responsibility (discussed later). Most concisely, they will only do what the law requires them to do and no more. I don't particularly like developers, but I will try to give their defense.

To play devils advocate, developers may argue in the past millions of hectares of nature was destroyed, all unregulated, in the name of agriculture. Used for farming. But suddenly now when a developer want to build housing for people, provide a home for families, this is when we suddenly care about nature??

I don't agree with this excuse. I know we didn't have these environmental laws to begin with, but we certainly have laws now. They must be abided by. Another argument they may use is, 'If I don't do it, someone else will' - an argument not always true either.

Believe it or not, there are some ethics in environmental destruction. Consider this:

The ethics of environmental destruction do get more complicated when developers are building large scale renewable energy projects.

Now developers can legitimately claim these projects are helping humanity decarbonise, and assisting the transition away from fossil fuels that cause global warming. Thus helping provide a more stable climate, and helping support nature everywhere.

However there are some important distinctions that must be made.

In reality, this argument by developers rests on a future promise, one that is not realised until the fossil fuel power plants are decommissioned or turned off. In my view, nature is harmed when any amount of CO2 (or greenhouse gas) enters the atmosphere. Even if renewable energy sources reduce demand and consequently the generation of fossil fuel derived electricity, this still doesn't mean renewable energy sources are 'good for nature' or helping 'protect nature'.

Therefore we cannot protect nature if we are running fossil fuel powerplants (even under a reduced rate of generation). The greenhouse gases will still accumulate in the atmosphere.

Therefore crucially it is the shutting down/preventing fossil fuel powerplants being turned on and not the construction of renewables that benefits nature.

The construction of these large-scale renewable energy projects can also cause great destruction. Think about hydroelectric dams (e.g the proposed Franklin Dam), new wind farms, new solar farms, and all the transmission lines and substations that have to run in-between. As depressing as it is prudent, developers now have a handbook to consult on birds getting hit by the blade of wind turbines.

That being said, I do very much support renewable energy sources.

The ethical dilemma is the following; How much nature are we prepared to destroy now, to benefit nature (and the whole planet's climate) in the long term?

Deeper fundamental ethical questions also remain that I cannot discuss in one blog post alone¹. Such questions are less practical and move further away from protecting nature in the real world.

Developers get a justifiable bad reputation as they can pass on the environmental expenses to the buyer. Let say an endangered species, protected under law, is discovered in the area they want to develop. This could add hundred of thousands, likely even millions of dollars in costs and delays. They will have environmental consultants searching for this particular species, possibly even need to relocate/capture the threatened plant/animal. Or more generally, if they have to remove native vegetation, an offset (a site deemed of similar quality and size nearby) will be required.² Followed by many more hours of work in reports to show the government due-dilligence was done, and no laws were broken. The problem is, let's say this costs $1,000,000 more than budgeted (a conservative estimate). If you have a development with 20 houses, then the developer will add extra an $50,000 to each house to cover the cost. 100 houses, add $10,000 more to each house.

It is unscrupulous and deplorable, but the developer will pass the extra environmental cost to the buyers. I also get the impression that the developers will aim to swindle as much money as possible, regardless of the environmental costs associated with the build.

If developers are responsible for destroying the natural environment, the least they can do is pay for its destruction, where hopefully funds are put aside to restoring nature somehow. As of February 2026, under new reforms, developers can now pay the government to do the restoration work for them (further reducing their responsibility). So whilst they do finance the destruction of nature, it is hard to argue they are responsible for the protection of nature. This is largely because they off load their responsibility to the next group of people... the consultants.

The consultants

So what do they do?

They write all the environmental reports, the impact statements, etc. They are all the people who get the government to sign off on any large scale development. They are the middleperson between the developer and the government. Letting consultants do your work for you provides numerous advantages. These consulting companies essentially provide insurance for their client (the developer) ensuring that they are free from litigation for environmental damage (and by association reputational damage). The idea also behind consultants is that they provide a degree of independence, and separation from the developer. This is important as the regulator (the government) will be the ones making the final decision.

Consultants will go out and conduct all the surveys, collect all the data and write all the reports. Reports can range from massive environmental effects statements, to very small letters to the local council.

All I can say is we must ensure consultants have dam well done their due dilligence. They have enormous responsibility. We have to trust their reports are genuine, legitimate and true - something that is hard to validate by an outsider with little transparency. In my eyes, they are the weakest link in the chain (and is evident by the many paragraphs I will now write about them).

The problem is, these consultants whilst not necessarily beholden to the developer, are still a product of the culture of the company. Take for example a search for a protected species. If you got slack bosses, who in accept slack employees, the chances you find that particular species is low. It is even lower if you conduct surveys at the wrong time of year, or use the wrong surveying methods.

There is also the issue of having new university graduates, who are in my opinion, are largely underqualified, and don't fully understand the responsibility of their role yet (through no fault of their own). A role that requires strong moral convictions, integrity and significant understanding of the whole system. Further their incompetence can be weaponised, and used against them to aid the developer. The more senior ecologists in these companies must set the highest of standards in undertaking ecological surveys. In my view, consultants should be doing everything they can to try and stop the developer from developing. Don't see the environmental laws as the bare minimum, always go above and beyond.

As a consultant, all your work revolves around the client, and your work is always in the context of development/the destruction of nature. You are not employed to research, or ask questions, or even communicate new knowledge/understanding of these ecosystems (when compared to a researcher). At the end of the day, consultants are employed give technical knowledge about the costs associated, the various difficulties and inform developers of environmental laws they need to abide by.

Consultants are only able to provide advice on nature that exists prior to development and predict the impacts during construction. Backed with the data from undertaking numerous surveys, they can give an indication of the habitat condition, estimate the likelihood of occurrence of threatened species. But something crucial is still missing. What about post construction, post development?

The true environmental costs may even be delayed until well after the development has finished. A scary process known as an extinction debt can occur. Local extinctions of species in an area happen all the time. This is the reason you only find a select few species of birds in urbanised areas, the magpies, pigeons and noisy miners. All the small little birds, for example finches and wrens, need dense vegetation and are unable to live in the little to no vegetation that remains (the street trees and grass lawns). Sometimes you are able to see certain traits and behaviors that are common across many species. Ecologically, the term we may use to explain such a phenomenon on communities are known as 'niche filtering mechanisms', the opposite of niche partitioning (that is more commonly considered/understood).

So if you are an environmental consultant, and someone asks you the dreaded question, "Are you facilitating the destruction of nature?", how can you truthfully respond when you yourself don't even know what the long term impacts will be post-development. Now imagine a 35 year career working as an environmental consultant, and the sheer number of projects/developments you assisted.

The consultants are also reponsible for determining how to best minimise the impacts of construction on the environment. This information is relevant for the next stage of development, if approved, the construction stage.

The construction workers

These guys are on the front-line of preservation vs destruction. The cutting edge if you will. That being the cutting edge of an excavator as it plows through native vegetation. In some sense, it's all floundery bullshit up until now. This is when it gets real.

The green light has been given and there is no turning back now. The extent to which nature is lost should have been all calculated. All neatly packed into some GPX file where a land surveyer will delineate the boundaries. All that can be done now is implementing control measures to prevent unnecessary damage to the environment.

This is also where a degree of unknown damage to the environment is introduced. The unreported stuff, the stuff nobody wants to admit to. There are two sorts of unknowns, the ones you can plan for, but you don't know the exact specifics. Then every so often, there are unknown unknowns that come into play. The stuff you can never plan or expect to happen. No-one is even able to consider such a possibility prior until you are undertaking construction.

I will start with the first kind of unknown. Let's say construction occurs next to a nearby creek that dries up over summer. However now when you are undertaking construction and are in the wetter months of winter, you realise many frogs live there. In this situation a good environmental consultancy would have realised the effect of seasonality and the potential for fauna to occur in this creek, but a bad one would not have.

In the first scenario, the consultants planned for this and set up fauna proof fencing to prevent frogs entering the construction site. In the latter scenario, the consultants failed to do their job, and now some ad-hoc response/decision will have to be made by the environmental engineers on site during construction. This can create headaches for all involved, cause cost blow outs and delay the work. Although there is also an alternate third scenario, that is even worse...

It is the decision to turn a blind eye. Let the machinery smash through the creek, or bury the frogs under sediment for the new access track. Those employed to do so may be simply unaware. Just so you know this fauna-proof fencing is completely ineffective and should have been installed much better, without gaps. Also more coir logs should have been used as there is the very real risk of sediment building up (as it appears near the end of this fence), that could crush the fence and spill into the creek. Further rainfall can wash sediment into the creek without adequate controls.

I have worked on numerous construction sites. A frequent major problem that occurs is in the implementation of control measures. At a certain job site, the environmental engineer told me they had installed fauna-proof fencing. This is what I discovered:

To make matters worse this construction site was bordering a Parks Victoria Nature Conservation Reserve (the grassland area behind the cyclone fencing). The reserve provides a habitat for many species. Protected species, such as the Tussock Skink Pseudemoia pagenstecheri (Endangered under FFG Act) likely exist here³ and possibly even the Striped Legless Lizard Delma impar (Endangered under FFG Act, Vulnerable under EPBC Act).

So ineffective, so pointless. No amount of reports, environmental management plans, or avoid and minimise statements will fix this.

If control measures are not implemented, or implemented ineffectively, the responsibility must lie heavily on those who could of done something (and protect nature) but did not. After all, the government has approved this development, under the condition that there are these controls in place.

On the construction site there are individuals that must step up. The site engineers, and in particular the environmental engineers on site need to make sure they are doing everything in their power to prevent avoidable environmental damage. I'm talking soil coirs, clear signage and fencing of no-go zones, fauna-proof fencing, and more.

Even sub-contracting these responsibilities when undertaking high-risk (in the context of environmental damage) operations is preferable to negligent or uncertain actions. You can employ fauna-spotters, or ecologists to come out on site and work with the excavator drivers, and tree crew that cut down the vegetation. I should know this, as I was one of them.

There are audits that occur, but usually far to infrequently, and they can be done not only by the regulators (the state government), but also by the consultants (who themselves are being paid by the developer). A conflict of interest is clear here.

Now finally an example of an unknown unknown. In June 2023, there was the rediscovery of the Victorian Grassland Earless Dragon Tympanocryptis pinguicolla! An animal thought extinct being last spotted in 1969. Guess where this was found? It was discovered in the Victorian basalt plain grasslands, specifically near Bacchus Marsh - A suburb my train went through. There is no way anyone can plan for a species thought extinct.

Consequently there is considerable trust placed on these workers. They are trusted by the public, the government, the consultants and developers to deliver the project and deal with all the unknowns.

The answer

Well you might say, 'Everyone in this whole process is responsible for the protection/destruction of nature', with the idea that if everyone takes responsibility and does their bit right there won't be any problem. But I don't think you can do this. It's not fair. Some are far more responsible than others. It also doesn't get you any closer in knowing where improvements can be made.

In my view consultants are underscrutinised and take the lions share of the responsibility to protect nature. Followed closely by the on-site environmental engineers/site engineers who have to make sure the processes and procedures are done properly, without shortcuts and with effective control measures. Developers are having less and less responsibility over nature (probably a good thing). I hope citizen keep pushing the government for strong environmental laws.

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Footnotes