Theyve fenced off a creek line and are encouraging native vegetation in order to protect the endangered booroolong frog. Robyn Williams: Yes, the ants mean lunch and dinner for half the Australian population, including the furry ones. "We found that conservation spending strongly reduced [the biodiversity decline score]," they stated. I think it would be better to pool our diverse strengthsto envision and trial strategies that could turn it all around long before we reach that precipice, he says. Australia is one of seven countries responsible for more than half of global biodiversity loss, according to a study published today. He says the work is important because a bird-pollinated system of plants is likely to be quite different to one pollinated by insects and could yield novel insights. Australia's biodiversity is in a bad way From time to time, you might hear that another animal is endangered or that more trees have been cut down to make way for new housing. So, in other words, that sort of message seems to say you need to consult the conservationists before you do something and rewilding is an interesting move. The study clearly linked adequate conservation funding to better species survival, which makes it all the. Australia has been hit by drought, fires and floods in the past five years. My guess is that Burramys will find any number of things to eat because theyve always been in lowland rainforest. Over 60 per cent of the continent is under assault by inappropriate land use, and in the process there is no valuing anything native; everything is being trampled and pushed back. Contrary to popular opinion, mining is a much smaller problem. If we didnt look after the erosion on this property, in 30 or 40 years time it would be disastrous all our soil would be in the neighbours place, Bruce says. This South West Biodiversity Hotspot has 8379 native vascular plants (species + subspecies), 47% (3911) of which are endemic (found nowhere else on the planet) 1. It is estimated that about 30 billion species have lived since multicellular life evolved, but only about 0.01% of that number live on Earth today. And in many ways we have to keep managing the environment in those disturbed areas to make sure that things don't get too out of kilter. More and more of Australias wildlife is disappearing and we seem to have a sad habit of changing laws and management practices after a species has gone, Trevor says. Surely thats not a greater glider? exclaims one of our small party. WWF's 2020 Living Planet Report held some alarming news: The world has seen an average 68% drop in mammal, bird, fish, reptile, and amphibian populations since 1970. Join us, volunteer and be a part of our journey of discovery! The NCT has worked with Wayne and Marcia to have part of their land protected under a conservation covenant. They may arrive at a site completely exhausted and in need of refuelling, and maybe that refuelling has been perfectly possible for the last 200 years, but it has been turned into a car park the year before. There is a similar sort of argument about rewilding bringing the wolves back to Yellowstone Park so that you cull some of the herbivores and allow the balance of nature to come back again. Unless you understand the processes you may disadvantage the species by not supporting the processes that brought it into being in the first place, he told Australian Geographic. Within decades the impact will be felt on the worlds weather with more species likely finding new conditions unbearable. Private conservation group Bush Heritage Australia set a goal for itself of purchasing and protecting a further 1 per cent of Australia by 2025. Robyn Williams: Apart from noisy miners, what sort of research are you doing at your lab? Biodiversity. ' He explains that, metaphorically, his family is turning off a light switch on their whole farm, which he hopes will make a big difference and influence others. Donate. Introduction of exotic plants and animals, and disease. 200, pp. But its going to really catch up to other farmers who have been flogging the land.. ONE ALPINE SPECIES the GER may not be able to help is the mountain pygmy possum. Along with UWA colleague Dr Siegy Krauss, Stephen was recently awarded $1 million from the Australian Research Council to test the evolutionary implications of this idea. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Did megafauna that used to roam Australia become extinct because of climate change or because of hunting? Biodiversity is the diversity of species, ecosystems and genes on earth. In the past 20 years extinctions have also become common on continents. Robyn Williams: Well, one of the interesting things about your lecture, and I don't know whether your students reacted at the Fuller Laboratory, is you said the first thing you see if you want to Google conservation is lots of furry animals, but on the other hand you've got animals with feathers and then you've got all those insects. Environmental change over the last few hundred years. Three major conservation corridors are being developed in Australia. Their hunting practices may have affected population levels of some animals, and the building of fish traps in coastal and inland rivers may also have had environmental effects. The Australian Government promotes the conservation of threatened species and biodiversity through the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. A carnivore is an animal that feeds on other animals. (Nigel Jackett), How tsunami have impacted Australias east coast and a new approach to limit the threat, Politicians unfairly maligned Robin Batterham, Submerged mats could dissipate energy of tsunami, Autonomous minibus and predicting the behaviour of pedestrians, Harry Butler honoured and how a scientist fell in love with a fossil, A tour of the antimatter factory and John Wheeler remembered. (2017, July 27). About half of south-west WAs 8000 plant species are found nowhere else, as are many animals including the numbat, western swamp tortoise and honey possum which feeds on the nectar of flowering plants, such as banksias. A rich diversity of snails in north-west Western Australia is sublime evidence of evolution in action. Government of Western Australia. SW Western Australia is one of the world's major biodiversity hotspots. Climate Change: Changes . You have reached the end of the main content. Pollution: Garbage dumped into the water supply, chemical runoff from industrial applications, and air pollution from cars and factories all have a negative effect. So I think there's fascinating stories and there are important lessons to learn, almost wherever we look in the natural world. Biological diversity - or biodiversity - is the term given to the variety of life on Earth. WAs Gondwana Link takes in a major biodiversity hotspot in Australias far south-west, while the Trans-Australia Eco-Link covers 3500 km from Arnhem Land in the NT to Port Augusta in SA (see map, opposite). Tom Lovejoy: There's is no question about it, it's very hard for countries with low standards of living to think about anything more than their immediate day-to-day problems, even if in the process of doing that they are undercutting their future, and most of those problems do occur in the developing nations of the planet and it is in the interests of the developed nations to help them solve that problem. The sheer scale and intensity of the Australian bushfire crisis have led to apocalyptic scenes making the front pages of newspapers the world over. White Spider Orchid Lower Swamp (Frog Swamp) North Lake Reserve 2014 The research, published in the journal Science, found that human land use has driven down the population of many species to a dangerous extent across vast swathes of the planet. Higgs, P. (2016, July 26). The landholders are Wayne Stokes and his partner Marcia Macartney, former public servants who moved here from Canberra almost two decades ago. Melbourne Universitys Kylie Soanes and Will Sowersby, tag a squirrel glider near Kyeamba, NSW. Section snippets The WA wheatbelt. Australia is the only western country to have large areas of rainforest intact. Its clear that conventional conservation is not working and not lasting.. Richard Fuller: We spend a lot of time studying migratory birds, species that migrate from Australia up to the Arctic and back, and that has been a fascinating line of work, looking at the amazing migration journeys of these animals, the threats that they face along the way, and what could be done about those threats. Professor Rod Peakall is a geneticist at Australian National University in Canberra. Image credit: gadigal yilimung (shield) madeby UncleCharlesChickaMadden. Much like climate change, the global challenge of biodiversity loss is defined by large geographic and economic disparities. So I'm fascinated by what constitutes a healthy relationship between people and nature and how can we enhance that to drive the conservation agenda forwards. UN Common Approach to Biodiversity. Governments are failing us Join us in calling for change JOIN THE MOVEMENT TODAY We cause global warming by releasing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, which will alter the nature of ecosystems everywhere. Image copyright JJ Harrison, Wikicommons, Yellow Donkey Orchids, Lower Swamp (Frog Swamp) North Lake Reserve 2014. As part of its Caring for Country initiative released in 2008 the Federal Government allocated $180 million to buy land, aiming to increase the National Reserve System from 11 per cent (890,000 sq. Robyn Williams: And that's quite an interesting example, isn't it, because if you are a bird lover or even some of those furry creatures, then if they are migratory they need to turn up in a certain place so that their timing is right for the emergence of certain insects in great numbers, and if the insects aren't there, these creatures just starve. But I think we have to be careful with some of those more utilitarian arguments for different aspects of nature. Deforestation, it said, totalled 430 square kilometres last month, five times higher than in January 20 21, and then, quoting a researcher at a Brazilian federal university who said, 'People might be surprised that it wasn't even more. 16 in the western plains of France and 24 in southern Victoria, Australia . Contrast that with Southwest Australia, which harbours an astonishing 7,239 vascular plant species, almost 80% of which are found nowhere else in the world(Alphen, 2016). Mitsch and Gosselink describe wetland environments as falling between the cracks of two disciplines (Mitsch & Gosselink 2007). You develop ownership of these little gliders. Robyn Williams: That's more local, isn't it, yes, that's interesting. In terms of bang for the buck, we get the most results for the least effort by conserving this corridor, Ian says. They have a right to live here just as much as we do. The excitement doesnt last long, though; a few camera flashes reveal the eyes belong to a common ringtail possum. That's a kind of fundamental underpinning for my own basis here. Check out the What's On calendar of events, workshops and school holiday programs. You can imagine a migratory species showing up and being unable to refuel on its journey, for example. Mikes proposal is certainly a bold and innovative idea and DECCW is exploring it with him, says Linda Broome. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, depending on whether the environmental degradation that leads to the loss is reversible through . Using his palaeontology background, Mike has devised a bold and potentially controversial plan to save the species. Would you agree with him? While private conservation partners, such as Bush Heritage and the NCT, are buying up properties to fill some gaps, other gaps can be plugged by bringing communities of private landholders on board. On a mountain, you can move around the hill a bit. Many farmers may be contributing to the landscape without even knowing it. The loss of biodiversity among these critical natural resources threatens global food security and the . It does have its place in communicating the role of different aspects of nature, the right to wrongs of different environmental management settings, for example. km) of Australia by 2013. Its a cold, wet winters night in Woomargama, in southern NSW, and were looking for squirrel gliders along a green road a patch of old-growth woodland on Bruce Lynchs farm. km) to about 15 per cent (1,250,000sq. Weve got to look at very large landscape scalesso that we dont lose the species that are [still healthy].. And so biodiversity and looking after the range of animals and plants and God knows what else is looking at a whole pattern. Developed by a partnership of the UK Business & Biodiversity Forum, IEMA, RSPB, WSP, the Aldersgate Group and . Image copyright Holly Story, Black Swans (Cygnus atratus), Perth (WA), John Oldham Park, September 2006. Thats going to put the temperature up at least one degree[enough] to destroy the habitat. Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. We have an obligation to look after them and the land looks after us, Bruce says. According to the UK Natural History Museum's biodiversity intactness index, high levels of biodiversity loss has occurred in regions including the UK and Ireland, parts of western Europe and stretches of North America . I know that you worked to some extent with Hugh Possingham who I think was the Queensland Chief Scientist last year, this year as well, and he came into an argument in South Australia talking about the need to cull koalas because in a certain area they were interfering with, say, the tree growth and suchlike. "Many, many species will be lost." Nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) of the Australian landmass is pastoral or agricultural land. Biodiversity loss can come in the form of habitat loss through land converted to agriculture, combined with land degradation through intensive farming practices - which is the principal contributor to the decline and extinction of species - and it can also come in the form of unsustainable food production, where our meat and dairy consumption This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. Make miniature mechanised minions with teeny tiny tools! Reduction in biodiversity was calculated by looking at species that had their IUCN red list upgraded during the period, such as from "least concern" to "threatened", or "vulnerable" to "endangered". Western Australia; Business Show subsections. At the University of Queenslands Fuller Biodiversity Lab, Richard Fuller, with colleagues and students studies the connection between people and nature. Image copyrightHolly Story. No, there is a race to clear it. Then, almost immediately after we discover its alive, in comes climate change, says Mike. And climate change, which hasn't been the biggest driver of biodiversity loss so far, is expected to take that role in the decades . New South Wales and Queensland have been particularly bad for that over the past two decades," Professor Brook said. The loss of biodiversity is in large part irreversible, and each time we lose species we lose something that cannot be got back and we lose part of our fundamental life-support system. SW Western Australia is one of the worlds major biodiversity hotspots. But now this almighty raptor, affectionately known as The Red, has become our nations rarest bird of prey. SUBTERRANEAN FAUNA CONSERVATION. Biodiversity and Conservation Science staff have expertise in animal biology, animal breeding, aquatic ecology, biological survey, collections . Australia ranks as the second worst of the group, with a biodiversity loss of 5-10%. A marsupial is born in a very incomplete state. Many factors are to blame for biodiversity loss, including wetlands destruction, damming and disruption of waterways, invasive species, exotic wildlife diseases and climate change.We also continue to develop more and more of our nation's terrestrial habitats. Our power usage globally has almost tripled in the last 50 years. But thank you Richard Fuller, and good luck with your work. Here are some of the most effective actions you can take to help reverse biodiversity loss and restore nature now. Some scientists believe that we are now witnessing the sixth mass extinction, the only mass extinction to be caused by a single species - humans. Hook Ups & Break ups; . Growing native trees for sustainable forestry or oil production is another. This equates to retaining natural . 75% of rainforests and nearly 50% of all forests; over 60% of coastal wetlands in southern and eastern Australia; nearly 90% of temperate woodlands and mallee; more than 99% of south-eastern Australia's temperate lowland grasslands; over 83% of Tasmania's lowland grasslands and grassy woodlands; about 95% of brigalow scrub that originally grew in Queensland. The destruction of habitat by human activities, including land clearing, remains the major cause of biodiversity loss in Australia. This has led to loss and fragmentation of habitats, with a range of biological effects, which include the slow dismantling of ecological communities and species habitat resulting in eventual species extinctions and loss of biodiversity richness. This, in turn, has triggered an ever-increasing suite of regulatory controls that are considered to result in delays for the approval of projects. Compared to Australia, which recorded a biodiversity loss of between 5 and 10 per cent of the total global decline, the study published in Nature found Indonesia had "absolutely the highest number of declining species", representing around 21 per cent of the total decline during the period. Similarly, Australia lost 5-10% of its biodiversity between 1996 and 2008 while high levels of deforestation to make way for agricultural plantations have particularly affected the species rich rainforests of Indonesia. Provisions that replace those existing under the Wildlife Act and Sandalwood Act (including threatened species listings and controls over the taking and keeping of native species) and their associated Regulations cannot be brought into effect until the necessary Biodiversity Conservation Regulations have been made. Conservation efforts need to be coordinated so together they produce the best chances for the survival of plants and animals which have evolved for specific ecological conditions and have little tolerance when those conditions are altered. 26 ) kind of fundamental underpinning for my own basis here and Queensland have been bad! Its alive, in comes climate change, says Mike decline score ], '' professor Brook.! Permanent, depending on whether the environmental degradation that leads to the variety of life on earth is it... And genes on earth biodiversity is the only Western country to have areas! Past two decades ago 15 per cent ( 1,250,000sq we discover its,... 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