Bleached coral can take on luminously beautiful pink and purple hues - but don’t be deceived, these corals are under stress.
Justin Marshall/coralwatch.org
The bleaching hitting the Great Barrier Reef not only harms corals. As these close-up photos show, it also deprives many other species of a home and livelihood.
The Northern Corroboree frog is among seven species at grave risk from fungal disease.
Michael McFadden
Chytrid fungus has already wiped out six species of Australian frogs since the disease arrived in the 1970s. Without urgent action, seven more are facing extinction.
Mining is the biggest activity on Cape York - but is it the best way to use the land?
Weipa image from www.shutterstock.com
Bleaching has hit a huge swathe of the Great Barrier Reef, with many corals in the reef’s remote northern reaches now expected to die as a result of warm waters linked to this summer’s El Niño.
Ministers considering new coal mines need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
The granting of a mining lease to the Carmichael coal project, despite the huge potential greenhouse emissions, shows that ministers need to consider the wider consequences of their approvals.
Queensland’s laws targeting bikies are set to be replaced with more workable ones.
AAP/QPS
A report by a taskforce reviewing Queensland’s anti-bikie laws is a step in the right direction for dealing with organised crime as a whole, rather than just focusing on one small sub-group.
Outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish, which eat coral, have been linked to poor water quality.
Starfish image from www.shutterstock.com
Queensland’s Wet Tropics are home to a dizzying range of plant and animal species, but are at risk of being overrun by yellow crazy ants.
Queensland is set to join all other states, territories and local councils (with the exception of Tasmania) in having fixed four-year parliamentary terms.
AAP/Dan Peled
The House of Representatives is now the only lower house chamber in the Australian parliamentary system with non-fixed three-year terms. Should it change?
The southern black-throated finch could be brought to the brink by coal-mining developments.
Seabamirum/Wikimedia Commons
More than half of the remaining habitat for Queensland’s southern black-throated finches is potentially subject to mining development. If these mines go ahead, it will be bad news for these birds.
Land clearing rates in Queensland tripled since 2010.
Martin Taylor
Land clearing in Queensland has tripled in the past five years.
Graduates of a 2015 Tertiary Entry Program, which paves the way into university courses, with lead author and CQUniversity’s Pro Vice-Chancellor of Indigenous Engagement, Bronwyn Fredericks (fourth from left) and Provost Hilary Winchester (far right).
Peter Lawrence/CQUniNewsPICs
If we’re serious about closing the gap in Indigenous education, our new research shows the value of building better bridges into universities and vocational education.
You need to keep a close eye on croc numbers for several decades before knowing how many eggs to harvest.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Queensland opposition MPs want crocodile egg harvesting to be expanded, as in the Northern Territory. The difference is, the territory’s government has stayed committed to sustainability research.
Inviting, but don’t go in.
Stinger sign image from www.shutterstock.com
Australia may have reputation for vast areas of wilderness, but in reality the continent’s ecosystems have been chopped and diced. Now we need to protect what’s left.
The community must be careful of what it demands of the court system.
AAP/Lee Besford
Gerard Baden-Clay’s successful appeal against a conviction for the murder of his wife should not be misread as a sign of judicial tolerance of domestic violence.
Gerard Baden-Clay’s murder conviction for the death of his wife Allison has been set aside on appeal.
AAP/Dan Peled
At a time when Australia is discussing the adequacy of legal responses to domestic violence, decisions that serve to lessen the culpability of men’s violence against women are undoubtedly concerning.
It is a rarely discussed fact that some police officers commit domestic violence.
AAP/Dave Hunt
Despite 15 years of concerted action by the Australian and Queensland governments the health of the reef is not improving and in fact may be continuing to deteriorate.