Thanks, Chris for drawing this major threatened act of environmental vandalism to our attention. If one wants to help stop the threatened destruction of Port Phillip Bay please visit the site of Blue Wedges who is main organisation fighting to save the Bay. Their site is at: http://www.bluewedges.org

Blue Wedges have recently succeeded in stopping the destruction scheduled to begin today!

They did this by having won the right to have their objections to the channel deepening heard in the Federal Court on 20 February. If the Port of Melbourne Corporation (PoMC) attempts to begin dredging before then an injunction is likely. See story at http://www.bluewedges.org/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=145&cntnt01returnid=15 (or http://candobetter.org/SavePortPhillipBay). However, court challenges cost a lot of money. Please help them by making a donation. Details of how to donate are to be found on http://www.bluewedges.org

Also, please log on to the Friends of the Earth site at http://www.foei.org/en/get-involved/take-action/port-phillip-bay/ if you wish to e-mail Federal Environmental Minister Peter Garrett in order to demand that he use his powers to save the Bay.

or you could add your name to the citizen initiative protecting the bay.

wait! there isn't one.. i wonder why.

"What is needed is a far stronger set of environmental laws"

The scientific basis behind concern for the effects of the bay's health are one thing, and not something I'm in a position to question, nor see any strong need to question.

But can we at least question whether stronger environmental laws will actually help?

There are countless examples of strong environmental laws that have hopelessly backfired, causing more damage than good.

That doesn't mean that all environmental laws suffer the same problem, or that there is no possible way the bay could be well protected by stronger laws, but I would like to see bodies such as the ACF questioning whether stronger law and stronger government oversight is realistically likely to be a successful solution.

Personally, I don't think the government should even have the right to decide on such a massive project without the people's direct and informed consent. Especially because it is completely irreversible.

Wizofaus,

I think your point that properly working democracy may be more critical than strong environmental laws is a good one. If the affected people had been consulted, the channel deepening project would have been buried back in 2005.

Still, I would be interested if you could provide examples of strong environmental laws which you say have backfired.

One example: http://graphics8.nytimes.com//images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/FreakPDF4.pdf