Sarah Davison
Planning for Animals
Sarah is a planning lawyer with a keen interest in animal law.
Sarah has over 20 years’ experience in all areas of planning and has worked in both local government and private consulting.
Her legal experience has been focused in the area of planning law and she has a particular interest in how the planning system can be used to advocate for animals.
Planning for the cow-shaped elephant in the room- there is an urgent need to address the climate impacts of animal agriculture as part of the planning process
Any serious attempt to reduce impacts on climate change must address the role of the animal industrial complex. The planning process frequently provides an opportunity to balance the ‘need’ for meat with the unsustainable methods of its production.
At present, in the Victorian planning system, a renewable energy project may be rewarded for making a contribution to net community benefit, but a pig farm is not assessed through the prism of climate change.
The tools exist to incorporate a consideration of the longer term environmental impacts of animal agriculture, but our inherent bias in favour of the consumption of animals prevents necessary scrutiny.
These tools include the Objectives, and Section 60, of the Planning & Environment Act 1987 as well as Clause 65 of Victorian planning schemes – all of which have been used to address climate change issues in other contexts.
Our community’s sustainable future relies on planners making decisions about the use and development of land, that are genuinely in our long-term interests.
In this presentation I will examine relevant VCAT decisions in the context of how the climate impacts of animal agriculture could be assessed from a planning perspective.
