Position in Faculty
Honorary Senior Fellow

Degrees Held
PhD (UOW), BSC LLB (UNSW)

Publications

Freya moved to Wollongong in 1998 having spent the previous 8 years living and working in Darwin. She worked for 7 years at the Law Faculty of the Northern Territory University teaching in the areas of Constitutional Law, Administrative Law and Environmental Law. Her research during this period was in the area of Environmental Law focusing particularly on developments in the Northern Terrritory. She played a leading role in the establishment of the Environmental Defender's Office (NT).

Freya's PhD thesis was on issues relating to biodiversity conservation and the law in the Northern Territory. She is particularly interested in the values inherent in the existing natural resources law of the colonial legal system and the relationship between this system and Indigenous legal systems. She believes that property rights must be a central concern for all those interested in biodiversity conservation.

Freya is particularly intersted in cross-disciplinary perspectives in natural resources law including perspectives from the biological sciences, ethics and philosophy, geography, anthropology, history and environmental management.

Research Areas
Freya's PhD thesis has the following title: The implications of the concept of biodiversity for land tenure, land management, environmental and planning law in the Northern Territory.

Other research interests include: indigenous people and the Constitution, the constitutional development of the Northern Territory, constitutional change in Australia, wildlife and fisheries law, environmental impact assessment, environmental ethics, water law, administrative review remedies under planning law, the management of rangelands and tropical savannas, the environmental impact and regulation of mining, including sea rights, native title law, pastoral leases and the history of relationship with indigenous people and the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act.

Publications

• "Environmental Assessment and Planning Law in the Northern Territory: is there a need for law reform?" in Moffat 1. (ed) Conservation and Development in North Australia, NARU, Darwin, 1992.
  
• "A Major Mining Project is fast-tracked in the Northern Territory, but at what cost?" Impact No. 30 June 1993, Published by the Environmental Defender's Office, Sydney.
  
• Contributor to The Law Handbook published by Darwin Community Legal Centre and NT Legal Aid Commission, 1993; Planning and Environmental Assessment.
  
• Contributor to the Law Handbook Second Edition, published by Darwin Community Legal Centre and NT Legal Aid Commission, 1997; Planning, environmental assessment and the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act.
  
• "Current Developments in Natural Resources Law and Policy in the Northern Territory". The Australasian Journal of Natural Resources Law and Policy, Vol. 1, No. 1. 1994.
  
• "Current Developments in Natural Resources Law and Policy in the Northern Territory". The Australasian Journal of Natural Resources Law and Policy, Vol. 1, No. 2. 1994.
  
• Northern Territory contributor to "Recent Developments" in Australian Environmental Law News, 1992 - 1993.
  
• "The Significance of Property Rights for Biodiversity Conservation in the Northern Territory" The Australasian Journal of Natural Resources Law and Policy, Vol.3, No.2. 1996.
  
• "What is the Value of Biodiversity? Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives". Green Paradigms and the Law, Rogers N, (ed), 1998 Southern Cross University Press, NSW.

The following articles have been accepted for publication:

• "Biodiversity conservation: scientific information versus cultural values". Paper presented at the 1995 Royal Zoological Society of NSW Conference: Money Science and Politics, to be published by Surrey Beatty and Sons.
  
• (with J. Woinarski) "Limited Lands and Limited Knowledge: Coping with Uncertainty and Ignorance in Northern Australia" to be published in the monograph Ecology, Uncertaintay and Policy: Managing Ecosystems for Sustainability, Norton T, Dovers S and Handmer J (eds), by Cambridge University Press.
  
• "A History of Flora and Fauna Laws in the Northern Territory: If it moves, shoot it, if it doesn't chop it down?" to be published in a book Essays in Northern Territory Law by the Northern Territory University Press.