Ecological restoration and the Samuel review of the EPBC Act

With devastating droughts and bushfires in eastern Australia in recent years accelerating the loss of natural habitats and species, with climate change driving such impacts, the EPBC Act review provided a timely opportunity to critically assess the limitations of current law and how it might be improved. This paper briefly reviews the importance of the EPBC Act for restoration and discusses the suggestions made by the review of it in 2020. Emerging from the EPBC Act review the paper discusses offsets, carbon markets and private investment as three important issues. It concludes with some reflections on eco-restoration more broadly and whether the review suggestions will help move forward the debates about recovery.