FAO Water Tenure Mondays – Dr Emma Carmody: “Environmental water tenure in Australia” (15 November 2021, 11.30 CET)
Water laws in certain Australian jurisdictions have undergone significant reform in the last two decades, notably in relation to environmental flows. This presentation will explore the legal framework for e-flows in some of these jurisdictions, including tenure arrangements. It will further discuss the advantages and limitations of various frameworks, the extent to which they address climate change and opportunities for further reform. It is hoped that these reflections will be of use to water managers and policymakers in other water-scarce countries and regions affected by the ‘over-extraction-climate change nexus’.
Dr Emma Carmody is an international environmental lawyer with particular expertise in water law and policy. She has extensive experience advising nation states, government ministries, First Nations peoples, farmers and peak conservation organisations in Australia and abroad. Dr Carmody is the Managing Lawyer of the Freshwater Program at the Environmental Defenders Office and sole Legal Advisor to the Secretariat of, and 172 Contracting Parties to, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. She also serves on the Strategic Advisory Council of the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation and is a former Trustee of the Alliance for Water Stewardship International. She is listed in Best Lawyers in Australia in two categories (Water Law and Environment and Planning Law) and was the 2018 recipient of the Dunphy Award for Most Outstanding Effort by an Individual at the New South Wales (NSW) Environment Awards. The award was made in recognition of her groundbreaking investigative work as a water lawyer, which has resulted in multiple inquiries and reports, a Royal Commission, prosecutions and significant reforms to water laws in NSW, Australia.
Video and presentation: https://bit.ly/3fENUKM