Legal eagles: how climate litigation is shaping ambitious cases for nature

Environmental lawsuits are nothing new but now lawyers are turning their attention to cases that address the loss of biodiversity

The Tagus estuary near Lisbon is Portugal's largest wetland, a vital habitat and stopover for tens of thousands of migratory birds, including flamingos, black-tailed godwits and glossy ibis. It has also been earmarked as the site of a new airport, leading the environmental law charity ClientEarth and a group of Portuguese NGOs to sue Portugal's government. When they get their day in court, they will argue that the authorities failed to properly consider how the project would affect an internationally protected nature reserve, and the knock-on effects on other countries visited by the birds.

If you destroy that site, you have an impact not only in Lisbon, but on all the sites up the flyway," says Anna Heslop, head of wildlife and habitats at ClientEarth. If the bird populations don't arrive, they never get breeding."