Barry Law Environmental and Earth Law Journal

November 3, 2025

Climate displacement is a growing but underexplored issue in the legal and humanitarian fields. While international law increasingly recognizes human “climate refugees”, wildlife forced to flee their homes due to fires, droughts, or floods remain legally invisible. To ensure ecological resilience, environmental law should provide mobile legal protections that follow displaced species beyond the static boundaries of protection.

Climate displacement is often framed as a human crisis. People fleeing floods, drought, or wildfires fight for humanitarian aid and legal recognition in the places they resettle. Yet, these same disasters drive billions of animals from their habitats, with little to no legal protection. Existing systems already struggle to protect humans, and they do even less for animals forced to flee.

It is difficult to know exactly how many animals are displaced every year due to environmental disasters, but it is likely in the billions. [1] Such a constant loss can have an irrevocable impact on our ecosystem, and of course the lives of those animals displaced.  Although environmental laws have been effective in promoting better treatment of animals, their reach is limited because protection is tied to the land not the animal. [2]

Example: Koalas Fleeing Eucalyptus Forests of Australia

Australian koalas have increasingly fled their native eucalyptus forests as wildfires intensify across the continent. [3] These fires devastate not only the trees that sustain koalas but also the fragile ecosystems that form the foundation of their survival. In the aftermath of these fires, koalas often face dehydration, starvation, and exposure to predators and human hazards such as vehicle strikes. [4] Their displacement reveals a critical tension in environmental law: while climate change forces wildlife to migrate, legal protections often remain fixed in place.

This scenario underscores an emerging legal paradox. The environmental protections that safeguard species like the koala are typically tied to geographic designations rather than to the animals themselves. Once koalas flee their legally protected eucalyptus habitats, they effectively step outside the scope of existing environmental statutes.

Legal gaps

Environmental law, by design, is built around fixed physical categories such as fields, lakes, rivers, forests, and national borders. Foundational laws such as the Endangered Species Act and various national habitat protection statutes apply within pre-defined ecological or administrative boundaries. [5]

However, climate change–driven disasters increasingly blur or erase those boundaries. When fire, drought, or flood compels animals to migrate, the law does not move with them. A koala protected within a designated eucalyptus reserve may lose that protection the moment it crosses into unprotected territory in search of food or shelter.

Legal protections can include a range of measures such as prohibitions on hunting, requirements for tracking and medical care, and the provision of emergency feeding stations. Yet these measures often terminate once an animal leaves its historically protected range. In the context of climate-induced displacement, this legal rigidity can mean the difference between species recovery and extinction. [6]

The Broader Implications

So, what’s the big deal? Are a few displaced koalas worth legislative reform? The issue extends far beyond individual species. Wildlife displacement undermines entire ecosystems, eroding biodiversity and destabilizing natural balances that sustain agriculture, water systems, and even human health.

When environmental law remains tethered to static geographic zones, it fails to meet the dynamic realities of a warming planet. To fulfill its core mission, the prevention of foreseeable ecological harm, environmental law must evolve toward mobility-based protections that recognize the migratory and adaptive nature of species in crisis.

Conclusion

Climate change is displacing countless species, exposing a major gap in environmental law. Current protections are tied to fixed habitats, leaving animals legally unprotected once they are forced to migrate. This static framework undermines the law’s core purpose of preventing foreseeable ecological harm. To stay effective, environmental protections must become mobile, following species across shifting landscapes and borders. Extending legal protection to displaced wildlife is not only a moral imperative but a legal necessity for sustaining biodiversity in a changing world.

Written by Virginia Grier, Associate Editor 2025-2026