Mark Beaufoy, National President
Mark Beaufoy is an environmental and planning lawyer with over 20 years’ experience. He is a Partner at King & Wood Mallesons. Based in KWM’s Melbourne office, his practice focuses on Commonwealth and Victorian jurisdictions, extending to projects in South Australia and Tasmania. He supports clients across a wide range of industries including infrastructure, energy and resources, real estate, agriculture, consumer, and manufacturing. Mark has wide experience in all aspects of environmental and planning law (including climate, water, heritage and biodiversity), including project approvals (infrastructure, energy, waste and resources), environmental regulatory compliance and due diligence, environmental and planning litigation. He has extensive experience advising on approval strategies for major infrastructure, industrial projects and residential development, including planning, environmental effect statement and impact assessment, environmental protection licensing, European cultural heritage, Aboriginal heritage, biodiversity, development and infrastructure contributions and associated work-in-kind agreements. Much of Mark’s recent work on major projects has been focused on the energy transition and new renewable energy projects, including closure and rehabilitation of former industry and power station sites (including coal fired power stations in the La Trobe Valley, Victoria) and new energy projects including electricity transmission, batteries, solar, onshore wind, and recently offshore wind. Since 2011 Mark has been consistently recognised as leading environmental lawyer by Chambers and in government law, planning and environmental law and climate change in Best Lawyers in Australia. In 2019, he was awarded Lawyer of the Year by the Australasian Land & Groundwater Association. Mark is also a sessional lecturer in the Monash University Law School, teaching Planning and Environmental Law and Climate Law. Mark has undergraduate degrees in Law and Arts from Monash University, and a Masters of Laws (Environmental Law) from Macquarie University.
Grace Huang, National Vice President
Grace is a solicitor practicing in the Safe Climate (Human Rights and Coal) team at the Environmental Defenders Office, where she advises environmental and community groups in relation to strategic legal interventions to protect the people and places we cherish.
Grace has also worked with a range of organisations including the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, and has also worked in private practice, most recently with Herbert Smith Freehills.
She is passionate about cross-sector collaboration, nurturing community amongst like-minded environmental law professionals, and developing robust debate around the reform of environmental law.
Tanja Mikulic, National Secretary
Tanja Mikulic is a senior lawyer in environmental and planning law. Over the past decade, she has obtained extensive experience advising Australian and global businesses in relation to project approvals, environmental impact assessments, contaminated land, pollution incident response, cultural heritage and climate change related matters. She also has extensive litigation experience in the NSW Land and Environment Court and NSW Court of Criminal Appeal, including acting as an instructing solicitor on complex and contentious prosecutions for the NSW Environment Protection Authority.
Tanja is passionate about facilitating cross-collaboration and dialogue across different sectors for the purposes of advancing environmental laws and policy. She has a particular interest in Australian biodiversity protection laws, pollution reduction laws and environmental compliance and enforcement.
Cameron Holley, Director
Cameron is a Professor and Head of School for the School of Law, Society and Criminology at UNSW Law & Justice. He has practised environmental and planning law in Queensland and is the current co-chair of the International Network of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Academic Committee. He is a current member of the Great Artesian Basin Stakeholder Advisory Committee and the Taskforce on Earth System Law, and a former member of The Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law.
Justine Bell-James, Director
Justine Bell-James is an Associate Professor at the TC Beirne School of Law with expertise in environmental and climate change law. She holds a PhD from QUT (2010) and was a postdoctoral research fellow at UQ's Global Change Institute from 2011-2013.
Justine’s main research interest is legal mechanisms for the protection, management and restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems. She currently leads an ARC Discovery Project (2019-2023) considering how coastal wetland ecosystem services can be integrated into legal frameworks. She is also currently funded as the legal expert on the $3m CSIRO/BHP project ‘Accelerating Adoption and Implementation of Blue Carbon in Australia’ and on two National Environmental Science Program projects to lead legal analysis on interdisciplinary projects related to coastal wetland restoration.
Katherine Navarro, Director
Katherine Navarro is the Principal of her legal consultancy PEPRlegal Pty Ltd, focusing on the intersecting areas of planning, environment, projects and regulatory/review matters. Prior to establishing her legal consultancy, Katherine was the inaugural General Counsel for the D&C Contractor building the North East Link Tunnels – Primary Package.
Katherine is also an accredited Gateway Reviewer, having advised the governments in SA, Vic and Tasmania on high value high risk transport and social infrastructure major projects. Katherine was previously a Legal member for Planning Panels Victoria, working on key planning and environmental matters that affected the future of planning in Victoria.
Katherine’s long interest and association with NELA began as a law student in Perth where she studied environmental law and volunteered at EDO (WA) and Noongar Land Council. Katherine joins NELA at a crucial time in the world for an objective voice to safeguard our collective environmental future.
Madeline Simpson, Director
Madeline is a leading Queensland based environment, planning and development lawyer with a practice that extends into the Northern Territory and South Australia. Madeline has more than 25 years’ experience and is a Partner at McCullough Robertson, based in Queensland. She works with clients in the resources and gas, renewables, electricity, infrastructure, property development and water sectors to provide strategic advice in relation to approvals and permits required for major projects and developments and has expertise in Planning and Environment Court appeals, Land Court appeals, judicial review applications, advising on environmental compliance, contaminated land issues, environmental impact statements, offsets and environmental incident response.
Madeline has a keen interest in environmental policy, advancing environmental and climate change law to facilitate protection of the environment and ensuring industry supports ecologically sustainable development. Madeline sits on the editorial committee of the Australian Environment Review, is a member of the Queensland Resources Council Environment Committee and chairs the Herbert Smith Freehills Diversity and Inclusion Committee in Brisbane.
Michelle Brooks, Director
Michelle is an experienced sustainability leader, passionate about providing high-level strategic advice to ensure companies are complying with their sustainability requirements to deliver outcomes that are consistent with the protection and promotion of their social licence to operate, and clearly disclosing these to their stakeholders.
She has vast practical experience in all elements of sustainability (health, safety, environment, native title, heritage and human rights) from operational level, corporate and as an external advisor. She holds undergraduate degrees in law and science from the University of Notre Dame Australia, and is currently studying Sustainable Capitalism and ESG at Berkeley Law School.
Michelle has a long history volunteering with NELA in Western Australia and Nationally, and a passionate advocate for the advancement of both hard and soft environmental law in Australia, and internationally.
Dr Paul Govind, Director
Dr Paul Govind is a Lecturer at the Macquarie Law School, Sydney Australia and Deputy Director of the Centre for Environmental Law at Macquarie University. Paul convenes units in Environmental Law, Planning Law and Climate Law.
Paul’s research sits at the intersection of environmental law/biodiversity law/planning law and value change. He has carved out a distinct research niche that looks at the application of relational values to environmental decision-making.
Paul is also Regional Director of the Global Network on Human Rights and the Environment (GNHRE) for the Pacific, a Board Member of the National Environmental Law Association (NELA) a member the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) Biodiversity Law Specialist Group and a member of the Editorial Board of the Chinese Journal of Environmental Law.
Sarah Brugler, Director
Sarah is an experienced environmental law professional and is a current doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law at the University of Tasmania. Sarah’s doctoral research investigates the use of conservation covenants as a tool of environmental law, focusing on key governance elements for covenanting bodies to achieve successful conservation practices in Australia.
Sarah has extensive experience working as a senior lawyer with environmental not-for-profits. Prior to commencing her PhD, Sarah was the Legal Counsel for Trust for Nature (Victoria), Victoria's dedicated private land conservation organisation. In this role, Sarah oversaw conservation covenant negotiation and registration as well as providing organisational legal governance guidance and advice. More recently Sarah has assisted Trust for Nature (Victoria) on legal projects focusing on Indigenous partnerships, including navigating proposed transfers of private conservation reserves to Indigenous groups. Prior to joining Trust for Nature, Sarah worked as a nature law reform lawyer for Environmental Justice Australia (EJA). Sarah has also previously worked as a lawyer for ClientEarth's biodiversity program in London. Sarah commenced her legal career as a commercial property lawyer for Eversheds LLP (UK) and Henry Davis York (Australia).