Australia’s main environment laws have long been regarded as not fit for purpose. But efforts to strengthen environmental protection have met huge pushback.
Rewilding is helping to save species from the brink of extinction. But reintroducing species to islands or fenced havens have limitations. What if we could use flat topped mesas as well?
It’s fun to imagine secret dinosaur survivors living today, hidden in a remote corner of Earth. But the truth of who made it through the extinction event 66 million years ago may surprise you.
Koalas in trouble, land clearing at speed – nature in New South Wales is not well. Now the government is proposing significant changes to its ineffective biodiversity laws.
We all know the Barrier Reef – but Australia also has three other World Heritage reefs, Ningaloo and Shark Bay in Western Australia and Lord Howe Island off the New South Wales coast.
The plant has been propagated worldwide, but every surviving specimen of Encephalartos woodii is a male clone – and without a female, natural reproduction is impossible.
Faced with a darkly satirical vision that hardly seems sensationalist, the audience might wish for compassionate thinking to combat ecological disaster and precarious resources.
An end to extinctions. An environmental cop on the beat. Labor promised a great deal on the environment. But yesterday, they backed away from the main challenge.
Wildebeest herds churning dust. Sturgeon seeking spawning grounds. Shorebirds flying from Siberia. These iconic animal migrations could soon be a memory.
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Node Leader in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures, Flinders University