There’s a battle going on in your garden between invasive and valuable domestic pollinators. Here’s how to tilt the fight in favor of our humble bumble bee.
True Australians: hard workers, quiet achievers and generally underappreciated labourers.
NSW has nearly 300 threatened animal species, including koalas and pygmy-possums. Yet we still don’t know the government’s plans in one area that could pose a serious threat to NSW’s wildlife.
A dam in Indonesia splits the forest in two.
Bagus Indohono / EPA
If you were to believe the tabloid hype around Davos you might be forgiven for thinking it’s a giant party where elite business types meet celebrities and dole out a few quid to the less fortunate of the…
Island getaway: Tasmanian Devils have been moved to offshore islands to save them from a devastating disease.
AAP Image/David Beniuk
Australia is in the grip of an extinction crisis. Our unique animals, plants, and ecosystems are rapidly ebbing away in a process that began more than 200 years ago with European settlement. Feral cats…
Harvesting a crop or mining the soil by taking out more than we return?
Flickr/Cyron
Most people understand the idea of a supply chain so that, for example, to make a car you need many thousands of different car components for assembly at the factory. If any of those components are no…
Rabbits can strip grasslands bare and chew through young woody trees.
John Schilling/Flickr
On Christmas Day 1859, the Victoria Acclimatisation Society released 24 rabbits for hunting, to help settlers feel more at home. Given the millions of dollars in damage to agricultural productivity that…
Energy supply including nuclear is the best way to fight climate change and conserve wildlife and ecosystems.
James Marvin Phelps/Flickr
Should nuclear energy be part of Australia’s (and many other countries’) future energy mix? We think so, particularly as part of a solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent dangerous climate…
New York is one of many cities whose mythical allure claims that the streets are paved with gold. Sadly, you are more likely to be treading on – or at least wading through – the remains of burgers, hot…
Australia’s north is home to many pristine rivers, but most national parks are focused on land-based conservation.
Carole Mackinney/Wikimedia Commons
R. Keller Kopf, Charles Sturt University; Nicole McCasker, Charles Sturt University et Paul Humphries, Charles Sturt University
Freshwater ecosystems such as rivers, lakes and wetlands are precious. They contain several-times more vertebrate species per unit area than land and ocean environments, and they are more degraded. Protected…
Zoos provide succor for species having a tough time of it in the wild.
B. A. Minteer
Today, many zoos promote the protection of biodiversity as a significant part of their mission. As conservation “arks” for endangered species and, increasingly, as leaders in field conservation projects…
Where the rainforest meets the plantation: there are probably a lot more insects.
Ryan Woo for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
Palm oil plantations have an overall negative impact on biodiversity, according to research released this week. The study, published in Nature Communications, found palm oil plantations are home to fewer…
People are becoming more aware of the wold’s biodiversity, but the crisis continues.
Chris Ford/Flickr
James Whitmore, The Conversation et Nadia Wu, The Conversation
Globally, biodiversity is in trouble, and new research shows that the situation is unlikely to improve over the next five years. Researchers from around the world analysed global progress towards meeting…
Australian resources are fueling Asia’s development, but the next challenge is to make that sustainable.
EPA/Bagus Indahono
If measured by political will and rhetoric, Australia’s relationship with Southeast Asia would undeniably be in fine shape. Prime ministers as diverse as Paul Keating, Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard have…
A dead coral reef in the Caribbean. Coral reefs are extremely vulnerable to climate change and ocean acidification.
superqq/Flickr
Scientists are coming to the conclusion that we are on the brink of a mass extinction — the sixth known in the history of the Earth, and the latest since an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs 65 million…
A handful of soil needs vital micro-organisms to grow the food we eat.
Flickr/Pat Dumas
One of the biggest problems for conservation today is that it ignores 95% of all known species on Earth. Could a company ignore that proportion of its clients or a government so many of its voters? So…
New research shows golden orb weaving spiders are larger in cities compared to their relatives in the bush.
Lizzy Lowe
Find yourself thinking that the spider living in your garden is the biggest you’ve ever seen? You could be right. New research shows some spiders are getting larger and even doing better in cities than…
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University