The new State of the Environment report shows Australia’s soil and the life it holds is in poor condition. We need to protect our underground biodiversity.
Sindhi cattle near Amazon rainforest:
flexitarian diets could feed the growing world population without further encroaching onto wild habitat.
Lucas Ninno via GettyImages
Giulia Wegner, University of Oxford and Kris Murray, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Infectious diseases originating in wild animals are high and may be increasing. This is a sign that ecosystem degradation is undermining the planet’s capacity to sustain human wellbeing.
Africa’s biggest wheat importers will benefit the most from a resumption of Ukraine grain shipments.
Getty Images
After years of neglect, Australia’s environmental crises can wait no longer. Here’s what our new government can do quickly to begin turning things around.
Liz Hanna, Australian National University and Mark Howden, Australian National University
We can no longer pretend we’re separate to nature. If ecosystems collapse, our society will be threatened too.
In 2020, desert locus plague of biblical proportions darkened skies over the Horn of Africa. In part it was caused by high rainfall and flooding in areas usually spared by the insect.
AFP
Trade regulation by rich countries against pests and disease is gradually making its way into the less developed nations. On top of safer foods, new research shows this could also bring sustainable growth.
The sun sets on Sri Lanka’s protest movement (for now).
Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Images)
Protests over shortages forced the ouster of Sri Lanka’s president, but the crisis has deep-set roots in ethnonationalism, which has encouraged corruption, argues an expert on the country’s politics.
Cowpea is a popular protein source in West Africa.
Flickr
Donald Boesch, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Donald Scavia, University of Michigan
Nutrient pollution fouls lakes and bays with algae, killing fish and threatening public health. Progress curbing it has been slow, mainly because of farm pollution.
Foot and mouth disease hasn’t been on our doorstep since the 1980s. Keeping it out of Australia is a new national priority.
Satellite imagery monitors environmental changes to inform agricultural decisions. Agricultural patterns are distinctly visible in this near-vertical false colour infrared photography of farmland south of Khartoum, Sudan.
(JSC/NASA)
Stemming the water crisis in the western US will require cities and rural areas to work together to make water use on farms – the largest source of demand – more efficient.
Managing Director, Triple Helix Consulting; Chief Executive Officer, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Professorial Fellow, ANU Fenner School for the Environment and Society, Australian National University