It’s true: many species will go extinct due to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change. We will have to make some hard decisions about where to invest conservation dollars for the best effect…
Fifteen frog species have been discovered in the Western Ghats region of India, including 12 completely new species and three that had not been spotted in nearly 100 years. The “night frogs”, so named…
We live in an age of vanishing rainforests. Half of the world’s tropical forests have disappeared since World War II and roughly another 10 million hectares are being felled each year — the equivalent…
The New South Wales government last week said it would ban mining in the newly announced Dharawal National Park, an area where Illawara Coal was planning to extract up to $40 billion worth of black coal…
This year has had the lot. First came the tempest, then the floods. Fires are on their way as the landscape dries out. Now we have pestilence, in the form of Hendra virus. Calls for bat culls have ensued…
The issue of firewood management has recently attracted renewed attention in Victoria, where the State Government has changed the regulations on collecting firewood from State Forests. Firewood is cheap…
So, we have to feed an extra 2.5 billion people by 2050. For those of us interested in the future of biodiversity on this planet, this poses an uncomfortable challenge. It is also the topic of a recent…
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…
“Natural capital” is the resources in nature’s bank. Nature’s capital is not evenly spread across the world: some areas are “richer” than others. Raja Ampat in Papua is one of the richest. Currently under…
Human-induced climatic changes are altering ecosystems worldwide. Because of these ecosystem changes, the geographic range of species is shifting towards the poles or to higher elevations. The speed of…
The recently announced $276 million Tasmanian forest agreement agreement sets out to end the war between loggers and conservationists. But the war has been bitter, and forest industry workers have often…
AUSTRALIA 2050 – There’s no way of predicting what the environment will be like in 2050, but there are many possibilities. I will sketch out two extremes. The first is bleak. The first independent national…
The Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna is meeting today to discuss raising Australia’s tuna fishing quota. The tuna industry is expected to ask for a 30% rise in Australia’s allocated…
Pollution from human activities has major impact on the world’s marine ecosystems. Plastic refuse is one of the most pervasive types of pollution. More than 80 million tons of plastics are estimated to…
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University