Introduction
Introduction
Environmental laws aim to protect human health and the natural environment in the context of land-use planning and resource management. Environmental laws include legislation dealing with land-use planning, risk management for pollution and waste, protection of nature, the reservation and protection of public land, the management of natural resources, tackling climate change, environmental impact assessment and the licensing of certain industries and projects. Environmental laws regulate mining, forestry, heritage, coastal protection, water and waterways.
The Victorian Government is responsible for most of this legislation. However, there is also important Commonwealth Government legislation that is relevant in some circumstances, and local government decision-makers play an important part in administering some environmental laws.
This chapter covers the Victorian laws that provide for public involvement in decision-making and the enforcement of land-use planning laws, environmental impact assessment and licensing and pollution and waste risk-management laws.
Protecting the environment often requires people to use other areas of the law, such as freedom of information, administrative law, corporations law and consumer law. For more information about some of these legal areas, see Chapter 6.4: Neighbour disputes, and Chapter 12.3: Freedom of information law.
