Archived News for Green Sector Professionals

New research from the UK and Australia suggests that the rate of acidification of the world’s oceans is having a bigger effect on the population of plankton than previously anticipated.

Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, has announced the appointment of Professor Veena Sahjwalla to the Climate Commission.

The Department of Environment and Conservation and WWF-Australia launched a community survey to locate populations of the quenda, also known as the southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus fusciventer), living in the greater Perth region.

DEC Swan Region ecologist Geoff Barrett said quendas were living all around us in remnant bushland across suburban Perth, and called on residents to report sightings as part of the survey.

“Quendas have all but disappeared from other Australian cities, yet can still be seen throughout the Perth metropolitan area,” Dr Barrett said.

“Numbers have fallen significantly since the 1960s, but they can still be found throughout much of the south-west of Western Australia.

“Quendas are native mammals about the size of a rabbit with brown to yellow-brown fur, a long pointed nose, very short ears and a short tail. They prefer to live near waterways where dense low vegetation persists.”

Quendas are under threat from habitat loss, vehicle strike and predation from cats, dogs and foxes.

WWF has welcomed ongoing funding for key environmental programs but warned that Australian species would continue to go extinct without increased investment in future budgets.

Australia has a terrible record of extinction, with at least 27 mammals and 23 birds lost. To halt extinctions future budgets would need to go beyond the current 0.5% expenditure to the environment.

WWF-Australia Director of Conservation Dr Gilly Llewellyn said she was disappointed the government had delayed by one year the promised increase in overseas development aid, and failed to implement rumoured cuts to diesel fuel rebate and accelerated depreciation.

“Failure to keep the promise to increase overseas development aid means that critical assistance for struggling communities to adapt to climate change and foster ecosystem resilience will not be forthcoming,” Dr Llewellyn said.

“The Government could have cut inefficient expensive fossil fuel subsidies and reinvested this money to assist our neighbours to adapt to and mitigate climate change.

“The Government has missed an opportunity to show real leadership at the upcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio, where on the agenda is calls to remove environmentally harmful subsidies.”

WWF welcomed new money to implement reforms to the Environmental Protection Act but remain concerned about the ‘cutting green tape’ rhetoric and warned state and federal governments not to confuse streamlining with delivering more effective regulation.

The Climate Commission has published a NSW specific section of its Critical Decade report, detailing the expected impacts of climate change on the state.

The Federal Government has appointed Dr Justin Lee as the country’s new Ambassador for Climate Change, after outgoing ambassador Louise Hand departs the role to take up her new appointment as High Commissioner to Canada.

The Australian Government is seeking public input to help develop a new strategy for the identification, management and celebration of Australia’s heritage.

Australia’s natural capital or environment assets are worth $4,574 billion and accounted for more than half of Australia’s total economic wealth in 2009-10 found the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The value of our natural capital in current price terms, trebled between 2000-01 and 2009-10, driven by rises in mineral commodities and land values.

The Australian Government will provide $37.8 million over four years to implement reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the Act).

The Government will provide $12.5 million over four years from 2013‑14 (including $3.1 million in 2016‑17) to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to assist its research vision of 'Resilient Coral Reefs Successfully Adapting to Climate Change'. The contribution will be directed towards research to protect and preserve the Great Barrier Reef, in particular in response to climate change.

The Federal Government has moved to allay growing fears of the cost of the introduction of its carbon tax initiative, with Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Greg Combet saying the effects on families will be modest.

The National Water Commission’s CEO James Cameron, (no, not THAT James Cameron), has called for the improvement and systematic monitoring of water plans to ensure that methods used are effective in meeting their environmental objectives.

Losing even just a few plant species in diverse ecosystems could in the long term reduce biomass production and impair ecosystem sustainability say the authors of a new study published in the international journal, Science.

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Select Council on Climate Change has reached a bipartisan agreement for a national approach to reforming climate change policies and programs.

The CSIRO has warned of drastic changes to volume of Antarctic Bottom Water, the cold dense water that drives global ocean currents, after releasing recent findings.

Australia may need to consider selling off some of its National Parks if it is to be able to afford to conserve its most important landscapes and species for future generations, according to Professor Hugh Possingham, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) at The University of Queensland.

“Basically, Australia is facing some very tough decisions," Professor Possingham said.

"For all our present nationwide investment in conservation, we are still losing both species and ecosystem integrity.

"We clearly need better ways to decide what we can afford to save, because the current system plainly isn't working as well as we'd hoped.

“The evidence indicates that Australian native species are still disappearing at a rate 100 to 1000 times faster than normal.

"Over the past 200 years, 22 mammal species have become extinct, over 100 are now on the threatened and endangered species list, and 6 more bird taxa were recently declared extinct.

"Fourteen species of frogs are on their last legs.”

With limited funds, both government and private, for conservation the nation may have to look at a new system for allocating those funds where both the need and the prospects of success are greatest, Professor Possingham said.

This implied that public funds may have to be withdrawn from some areas and reinvested in others.

“You could liken it to triage in a World War II military hospital: tough decisions may need to be taken about which patients have the best chance of survival and the resources allocated accordingly.

"Otherwise you spread your effort too thinly and achieve too little.

“This is not a popular point of view – but it is grounded in reality.

“While 12 per cent of the continent is enclosed in National Parks, few have sufficient resources to manage their biota intensively.

In the absence of major new sources of funds, we need to consider where the prospects of success are greatest and, indeed, what success in conservation actually consists of.”

In the past, Australian conservation tended to be driven by a wish to restore parts of the continent to a pre-European state – but this had proved impractical.

“It can't be done in a dynamic world, where human influences and changing climates are constantly altering the rules for survival,” Professor Possingham said.

Across the whole of Australia, current conservation investment was probably about a tenth of what would be needed to protect most species and ecosystems and reduce rates of extinction, he estimated.

“As funding at this level is unlikely to become available in the short run, we should look at putting resources into those National Parks and species where we have the best chance of achieving something - and that may mean selling off smaller parks that are not viable,” he said.

However, selling national parks need not mean their loss in a conservation sense – many well-off Australians now had a strong desire to look after native bushland and its species on a private basis, while many farmers were revegetating cleared land with native trees, leading to recovery in native species.

“Also there are enough covenants and restrictions in force now to ensure conservation of the landscape even when it is managed privately,” he said.

“If we have to refocus public investment on the National Parks where we can achieve the best conservation results, then maybe we should also find ways to encourage more Australians to take care of their own landscapes and endangered species privately.”

For effective decisions to be taken about which aspects of Australian biodiversity we can afford to manage well, there are two requirements, he said: better quantification of the actual costs of conservation – and better mathematical models for predicting the probable outcomes of various conservation actions.

Both were now becoming available.

“This thinking is exactly the way business operates – where can we invest to get the best return on our investment.

"The logic is equally compelling when applied to conservation.

“In short we have a basis for taking much better decisions about our environment which can ensure quintessential landscapes and key species are better protected.

"But those decisions will not happen without some losses and public controversy.

"It's a case of deciding which battles we can win with the resources available – and fighting those.”

CEED is an Australian Research Council funded Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions and is part of the Commonwealth's National Environmental Research Program (NERP). CEED's research tackles key gaps in environmental decision-making, monitoring and adaptive management.

The Federal Government has announced 317 projects to be funded under the first round of its Biodiversity Fund, a key component of the Government’s strategy aimed at enhancing a biodiverse carbon storage environment and clean energy methods.

The Queensland Government has confirmed it will not look to challenge the Federal Government’s carbon tax in the High Court.

The Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has received a renewed report on the environmental impact of dredging at the proposed Browse Liquefied Natural Gas processing precinct.

Low Carbon Australia has certified Western Water’s Class A Recycled Water Plant in Melton, north-west of Melbourne as carbon neutral.