LAW 2567 - Biodiversity, Planning and Regional Australia Study Tour

This course takes students into regional Australia to examine the impact of federal and state laws on our diverse environments, towns and peoples in remote isolated regions. We will visit Port Augusta to learn about the interaction of Aboriginal people with the courts and the legal system, Woomera Rocket Range to learn about the history of weapons testing in SA, the opal mining town of Andamooka, the mining town at Roxby Downs including the Olympic Dam Uranium Mine, and the Arid Recovery conservation lands. Then we head down to Iga Warta Aboriginal Cultural Centre in the Gammon Ranges and spend a couple of days immersed in Aboriginal culture and modern day issues of mining, land rights, and justice access issues in remote townships in Australia. Finally a day in the Flinders Ranges to relax and reflect. We visit diverse small towns on the way. We look at conservation, biodiversity, mining law and practice, the impact of mining on Aboriginal people, the unique issues that people in remote communities face in terms of justice access, the way pastoral lands which make up the bulk of this space are regulated, and challenges for the future. The course is general in nature – you don’t have to have studied any related courses to participate, but you will learn about how all these legal social and justice issues intersect in remote Australia. The course will assist students to develop perspectives and understanding of biodiversity and planning mining and land management law as well as focus on the intersection of Indigenous interests with all of these issues, and enrich Indigenous cultural awareness. It will focus on developing legal analysis skills within a practical and holistic context and it will also focus on legal research.