National parks

Analysis and Comment (16)

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Moves to increase protection of national parks have been voted down. Flickr/Marc Dalmulder

Why would the ALP vote against stronger environmental protection?

By Ian Lowe, Griffith University

This week Greens Senator Larissa Waters proposed significant amendments to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Some sought to better protect farmers and water resources from…
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National parks make up a lot of our landmass, but change is needed if they’re to protect it. Flickr/Paolo Rosa

Making national parks truly national

By Corey Bradshaw; Emma Johnston, and Euan Ritchie, Deakin University

Australia boasts over 500 national parks covering 28 million hectares of land, or about 3.6% of Australia. You could be forgiven for thinking we’re doing well in the biodiversity-conservation game. But…
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We have to get smarter about the way we manage Australia’s national parks. Nic Prins

Our national parks must be more than playgrounds or paddocks

By Euan Ritchie, Deakin University; Bill Laurance, James Cook University; Corey Bradshaw; David M Watson; Emma Johnston; Hugh Possingham; Ian Lunt, and Michael McCarthy, University of Melbourne

It’s make or break time for Australia’s national parks. National parks on land and in the ocean are dying a death of a thousand cuts, in the form of bullets, hooks, hotels, logging concessions and grazing…
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When cows are going hungry, should their rights trump those of national parks? AAP Image/Dean Lewins

Queensland cattle crisis: animal welfare or the environment?

By Clare McCausland, University of Melbourne and Siobhan O'Sullivan, University of Melbourne

Due to a serious drought that has seen one-third of Queensland drought declared, farmers are struggling to feed their cattle. There’s inadequate feed on their own land, feed is hard to source in the marketplace…
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Our national parks are full of forests – we could be claiming carbon credits for managing them better. Tatiana Gerus

Which of our forests should be managed for carbon?

By Rob Law, University of Melbourne

The Australian Government has recently committed to a second round of the Kyoto Protocol to run from 2013-2020. In doing so, Australia is required to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5…
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An early dry season fire in Kakadu National Park – are these fires burning up our mammals? Clay Trauernicht

Scientists and national park managers are failing northern Australia’s vanishing mammals

By Brett Murphy, University of Melbourne; Clay Trauernicht, University of Tasmania, and David Bowman, University of Tasmania

Conservationists should take heart that Australia is finally waking up to the biodiversity crisis in Australia’s north. It is an urgent problem: right now, a diverse assortment of our small mammals – bandicoots…
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National parks' role as a refuge from direct human intervention will only become more important in future. dracopylla/Flickr

Biodiversity crisis demands bolder thinking than bagging national parks

By David Bowman, University of Tasmania

Tim Flannery’s recent Quarterly Essay, After the Future, questions whether Australian national parks will become “marsupial ghost towns” despite the tens of millions of dollars governments spend on them…
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It’s easy to find examples of good development in national parks – Cradle Mountain Lodge, for example – and examples of where it hasn’t worked. Michael Dawes

Is nature-based tourism development really what our national parks need?

By Sue Beeton, La Trobe University

You’d be hard pushed to find someone who doesn’t love national parks, either as visitors or as reasonably-minded bystanders. But can those parks be loved to death? And, if so, who should step in to help…
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Illegal hunting is a severe threat to wildlife in many protected areas. Shown is the skull of a young forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) killed in southern Gabon. Ralph Buij

Are nature reserves working? Take a look outside

By Bill Laurance, James Cook University

You couldn’t have witnessed the recent massacre of elephants at Bouba N’Djida National Park and not be worried about the future of biodiversity. The park, in northern Cameroon, is supposed to be a refuge…
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Our parks are an incredible asset, and if we ran them more like a business we would see that. AAP/Patrick Horton

Thinking corporately: getting national parks on national balance sheets

By Andrew Campbell, Charles Darwin University

National parks are among Australia and New Zealand’s most precious assets. But we don’t account for them properly, so they’re struggling. It’s time for a rethink. The assets managed by the parks agencies…
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Arise marsupial: the NSW town of Campbelltown could be the place to claw back Big Koala status from this one at Dadswell Bridge, Victoria. Flickr/pixelhut

High time for NSW to have a Big Koala debate

By Rob Close, University of Western Sydney

One of Campbelltown Council’s councillors, facing re-election in the upcoming elections, recently suggested that the city should construct a “Big Koala” (BK) in the style of other “big local features…
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National parks: the traditional way, but is it the best? jimmyharris/Flickr

Are national parks the best way to conserve nature?

By David Bowman, University of Tasmania

Many plants and animals will become extinct in this century – millions of years of evolutionary experimentation will be abruptly terminated. This raises profound philosophical dilemmas: which species…
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We can’t run away from it: we need food, and we need biodiversity. buiversonian

A global juggling act: feeding the world, saving species

By Jim Radford, Deakin University

Our planet is on the precipice of a sixth mass extinction event. But unlike the five previous mass extinctions, this one is man-made: a global biodiversity crisis in which species are disappearing three…

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