Government required to create plan to protect greater glider in major legal win for Wilderness Society

Under Australia’s national environmental laws, the environment minister decides whether a species – such as the greater glider – requires a recovery plan or not, which aims to bring them back from the brink of extinction. Photograph: Dean Sewell/Oculi Photos/The Guardian

The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, has conceded that successive governments acted unlawfully when they failed to create mandatory recovery plans for native species threatened with extinction in a major legal win for one of Australia’s largest environmental organisations.

The Wilderness Society has been successful in federal court proceedings it launched in March that sought to compel the minister to make recovery plans for species including the greater glider and the ghost bat.