Insufficient environmental legislation

By 1996, the Canadian government had weakened its department of Environmental Affairs, was abandoning environmental science programmes and important environmental standards, such as those in the Fisheries Act.

In 1994, there were calls to reform Australian environmental law, because Australia had too many conflicting laws that had been formulated in a piecemeal fashion, causing ineffective, confused and tardy implementation. The problems are worsened by the involvement of three levels of government with unclear environmental responsibilities.