News
While ELI welcomes the decision to make the Otago Peninsula set-net closure permanent, we are deeply concerned by the decision to set a Fishing Related Mortality Limit of four hoiho deaths per year in areas outside of the closure.
On the 14th July, the seafood industry is appealing against our landmark High Court win, ELI v Director-General of the Ministry of Primary Industries and others - and we’ll be there to defend it.
Many marine species have declined in the last thirty years, due in significant part, to being caught as bycatch in commercial fishing.
We welcome a significant High Court win, after the Court declared the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries’ previous orange roughy catch limit decision unlawful.
The Ombudsman has upheld ELI’s complaint.
The report finds the Prime Minister's Office has acted unreasonably.
In light of this, ELI says the Government need to pull the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill. It is clear the Bill is not in the public interest.
At the close of a four-day High Court hearing challenging the government’s under-levying of the fishing industry, the Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) says more science, research and observer coverage is needed to protect marine wildlife and ecosystems from the impacts of fishing.
The Environmental Law Initiative will challenge the Ministers for Oceans and Fisheries and the Minister of Conservation in the Wellington High Court from 15 - 18 June over cuts to the fisheries observer programme and the undersized levy charged to the fishing industry.
In the winter months, long-lived orange roughy assemble to spawn. In recent decades, orange roughy stocks have collapsed.
Yesterday, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced a partial closure of an area in the East and West Chatham Rise for a 6-week period in response.
A new report commissioned by ELI shows that Wetlands in Aotearoa continue to be converted into farmland, forestry and other modified land uses, despite strengthened national protections introduced in 2020.
The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) is calling for an Ombudsman inquiry and a Solicitor-General review following revelations that the Prime Minister’s Office suppressed significant lobbying by Fonterra, Z Energy and others that contributed to the Government’s move to block Mike Smith’s climate case from being heard in the High Court.
The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) says it is deeply concerned that the Government’s proposed changes to climate law will weaken the ability for people to hold powerful actors to account through the courts.
The changes would prevent courts from hearing claims about climate harm, removing the fundamental right for people to have their day in court.
New data obtained by the Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) shows 146 marine mammals, including numerous Hector’s dolphins, Dusky dolphins, and seals, have been killed inside Aotearoa New Zealand’s marine mammal sanctuaries over the past two fishing years.
Three days of hearing in the Wellington High Court in Lawyers for Climate Action and Environmental Law Initiative v Minister of Climate Change, concluded this afternoon.
The Minister was required by law to have a high level of confidence that New Zealand’s carbon budget would be met. However, the advice from his officials showed the chances of achieving the second emissions budget were not much better than a ‘coin toss’.
A landmark High Court hearing opens today as the Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) and Lawyers for Climate Action NZ challenge Climate Change Minister Simon Watts over decisions they say breach the law and endanger Aotearoa New Zealand’s climate goals.
We have filed an appeal against a key part of the recent High Court judgment concerning Environment Canterbury’s (ECan) rule allowing nitrate pollution.
ELI’s appeal focuses specifically on the Court’s interpretation of section 83 of the Resource Management Act, which the Court found prevented ELI’s judicial review challenge.
Although ELI was not successful on the specific grounds of the judicial review, the judgment delivers powerful clarity about the Minister’s legal duties to protect hoiho.
The High Court has found that Environment Canterbury (ECan) made an error of law when it allowed nitrate discharges from farming as a region-wide permitted activity in its regional plan.
The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) welcomes today’s announcement of a significant closure of the Northland spiny rock lobster (kōura) fishery, a long‑overdue response to the ecological crisis unfolding across northeast Northland.
ELI says Fisheries New Zealand needs to act quickly to improve its long-term options for protecting hoiho, as the urgent hearing on emergency measures wrapped up today in the Wellington High Court.
ELI is in the High Court this week for an urgent hearing challenging the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries’ emergency set-net fishing closure, which ELI argues is inadequate to protect the critically endangered northern hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin).
We’re calling on the government to take immediate action to prevent fishing-related deaths of critically endangered West Pacific leatherback turtle in New Zealand waters.
Appeal challenges legal interpretation of HSNO and EPA’s approach to glyphosate risk assessment.
Z Energy has apologised for any confusion caused by aspects of its advertising campaign, which claimed it was moving with the times and in the business of getting out of the petrol business.
The High Court has ruled that the Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) did not establish “a reviewable error” in the Environment Protection Authority’s (EPA) decision that grounds did not exist to reassess the herbicide glyphosate.
The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) has filed High Court proceedings against the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, challenging a recent decision to close a portion of northern hoiho habitat to setnet fishing.
We are appealing the recent High Court judgment which upheld Environment Canterbury’s decision to allow the MHV irrigation scheme to pollute water for 10 years.
The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) says today’s announcement of an emergency three-month closure of set-net fishing around the Otago Peninsula by Minister for Oceans and Fisheries Shane Jones will protect some hoiho, while leaving others unprotected.
The support of Otago set-net fishers for emergency closures of set-net fishing shows action to urgently protect hoiho has broad backing, and it is time for Ministers to act.
A US Court has ruled that New Zealand fish exports fail to meet the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act – because New Zealand is not sufficiently protecting the critically endangered Māui dolphins from fishing related-deaths.
The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) has been largely unsuccessful in its judicial review of Environment Canterbury’s (ECan) decision to grant a nitrogen discharge consent to the Mayfield Hinds Valletta (MHV) irrigation scheme.