Find Lawyers in Spring Hill, Australia for Natural Resources Law

Practice Area Overview

Natural Resources Law encapsulates the ownership and use of natural resources for commercial or other benefit.  Accordingly, it deals with the rights of those wishing to use natural resources and the rights of others.

Natural resources include: light, wind, water, plants, animals, land, minerals, oil and gas and other naturally occurring things.

There is obvious synergy and overlap between natural resources law and laws relating to agriculture, environment, water usage, mining and energy.  Laws relating to natural resources include forestry, biodiversity, fisheries, water usage and planning laws.

As well as land owners, parties with an interest in natural resources law include farmers, energy companies, mining companies (minerals and oil & gas), government, public interest groups, environmentalists and, of course, the general public.

The use of natural resources is heavily regulated and regulators are becoming more active as time goes by.

Almost every development these days involves some level of planning and management of natural resources to ensure that the development is ecologically sustainable and does not impinge on other actual or potential users of those resources.

The varied nature of this area makes for a complex path to negotiate when developing a project and dealing with natural resources issues.

There are often numerous natural resources issues relating to development of a project (for example, for the exploitation of a minerals resource) and it is necessary to be able to determine the approvals required for access to land as well as rights to disturb the land, obligations to preserve flora and fauna, rights to use water, ability to dispose of effluent, permits to store hazardous materials and whatever other issues arise in relation to the particular project.  Anticipating the need for approvals and permits is essential to the financing and development of the particular project.

Determining with certainty the obligations arising on closure and the potential impact on natural resources both short term and long term are also essential to the economics of a project.
Peter Smith Johnson Winter Slattery

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