Before Environmental Law

This landmark book unveils the history of defending Australia''s natural environment and examines the subject''s legal and political contexts from the birth of the nation in 1901 until the advent of the so-called modern era of environmental regulation in the late 1960s. It rejects the mythology that Australia lacked environmental law before the late 1960s in revealing how many of today''s environmental laws, from pollution control to nature conservation, emerged from precedents or events much earlier in the 20th century. This history however reveals a discrepancy between lawmakers'' greater efficacy to exploit rather than protect the environment, a discrepancy that grew as nature''s backlash intensified in a rapidly degrading continent colonised to build the Australian nation. In exploring these dynamics, the book offers a rich tapestry of case studies illustrated with historic photographs that show the origins of Australia''s environmental laws and how they borrowed from international precedents or furnished lessons for other nations. Through its multi-disciplinary enquiry, the book offers scholars and students of environmental law, legal history and the environmental humanities a unique story about the failures and successes in the making of environmental law.>

Préface
The origins and making of environmental law in Australia are told in this unique, internationally significant history of the struggle to defend a vanishing natural world during the first two-thirds of the 20th century.

Auteur
Benjamin J Richardson is Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Tasmania, Australia.

Texte du rabat

This landmark book unveils the history of defending Australia's natural environment and examines the subject's legal and political contexts from the birth of the nation in 1901 until the advent of the so-called modern era of environmental regulation in the late 1960s. It rejects the mythology that Australia lacked environmental law before the late 1960s in revealing how many of today's environmental laws, from pollution control to nature conservation, emerged from precedents or events much earlier in the 20th century. This history however reveals a discrepancy between lawmakers' greater efficacy to exploit rather than protect the environment, a discrepancy that grew as nature's backlash intensified in a rapidly degrading continent colonised to build the Australian nation. In exploring these dynamics, the book offers a rich tapestry of case studies illustrated with historic photographs that show the origins of Australia's environmental laws and how they borrowed from international precedents or furnished lessons for other nations. Through its multi-disciplinary enquiry, the book offers scholars and students of environmental law, legal history and the environmental humanities a unique story about the failures and successes in the making of environmental law.

Contenu
Part I: Governing 1901 to 1967 1. Young Nation, Ancient Continent 2. 1901: Nature for Nationhood 3. 1967: Nature for Nature Part II: Transforming a Continent 4. Taming the Bush 5. Prickly Pears to Toxic Toads 6. Engineered Landscapes 7. Testing Times Over the Outback Part III: Defending a Continent 8. The Furry and Feathered 9. Scenic and Primitive Areas 10. Town Planning and the Bush Capital 11. Resource Users and Polluters 12. Looking South: Icy Lands and Stormy Seas Part IV: The Future's Past 13. Restoring a Continent