Richard Fuller: We spend a lot of time studying migratory birds, species that migrate from Australia up to the Arctic and back, and that has been a fascinating line of work, looking at the amazing migration journeys of these animals, the threats that they face along the way, and what could be done about those threats. Biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history. We pay our respect to Aboriginal Elders and recognise their continuous connection to Country. A key part of their approach has been to plant silver wattles and other trees that provide important habitat for gliders and threatened species such as migratory swift parrots, known to visit a neighbouring property. It needs funding, but it could be the most exciting project of this kind in the world in terms of an innovative way to counter the unquestioned threat to the survival of a species through climate change, he says. Three major conservation corridors are being developed in Australia. Professor Fuller, you glory in the name of a laboratory, the Fuller Laboratory at the University of Queensland. Allowing landholders to benefit from the harvest of kangaroos for meat and skins is one idea. Were excited; greater gliders are normally found in the high country of Woomargama National Park, several kilometres to the south-east not down here towards the Hume Highway. Aborigines arent managing the bush [with fire] as they have done for thousands of years., Nigel Jones, who advises Bruce and Mark on the sustainable management of their land, agrees on the importance of farmland for biodiversity. However, as a country, we are among the worst on biodiversity conservation, with a loss of 5-10% as noted in study between 1996 to 2008. Get all the latest science stories from across the ABC. Scientists based their findings on the worsening in conservation status of species between 1996 and 2008 on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list. Home News Biodiversity hotspot in WA explained. Then, almost immediately after we discover its alive, in comes climate change, says Mike. (Credit: Esther Beaton), Yellow box grassy woodland regenerating from farmland on Bush Heritage Australias. [It] also supports a lot of wildlifeand there are a lot of resources there, says Nigel. SW Western Australia is one of the world's major biodiversity hotspots. Australias red goshawk once ruled the skies. We still have work to do on our engagement with biodiversity in Western Australia, and Perth specifically, before we can become a model for future cities. RESEARCH INTO THE birds and mammals that pollinate banksias and eucalypts in south-west Western Australia is challenging existing theories on the region's enormous biodiversity. Further down the line, if the breeding program is successful, the idea is to release them into lowland rainforests. While feeding on nectar, these animals disperse pollen more indiscriminately than insects while also often travelling great distances and this may have novel consequences for plant evolution, he says. The State of Dieback. When we go away, theres such a beautiful feeling when we come back herethe smells and fragrances at different times of year, or when its wet it helps you get grounded and get rid of some of the stress of the city, Wayne says as we watch a horse cantering across a paddock far below. Institute for Global Change Biology, and School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. I'm really interested in conservation, and conservation ultimately depends on repairing the broken relationship between people and biodiversity. When one is communicating to others or when one is trying to work out the worth of different species, I think we start to fall into really difficult territory. The mountains offer a huge diversity of refuges. Biodiversity. Their hunting practices may have affected population levels of some animals, and the building of fish traps in coastal and inland rivers may also have had environmental effects. If you look at what we currently have under protectionwe only need to get another 9 per cent of Australia into conservation-capable form. To pick up the shortfall, he argues, we must find ways of getting pastoralists to value the native wildlife on their properties. But tell me, without being supercilious, do you have fly spray in your house? Your information is being handled in accordance with the. Mining is only 0.2 per cent of that land area, says Mike. Perth also has 71 reptile species and is believed to have more reptiles than any other urban area in the world, including the western swamp tortoise, which is WAs most endangered reptile (World Wildlife Fund 2013). One species eats another, each is important. Conservation efforts need to be coordinated so together they produce the best chances for the survival of plants and animals which have evolved for specific ecological conditions and have little tolerance when those conditions are altered. We estimate there are less than 2000 adults left, says Linda Broome, an alpine ecologist with the NSW Department of Environment (DECCW). Alphen, S. V. (2016, February 18). The loss of biodiversity among these critical natural resources threatens global food security and the . We found that at least 67 million km 2 of Earth's terrestrial vegetation (79% of the area of vegetation remaining) requires retention - via sustainable and appropriate land use and management - to contribute to biodiversity, climate, soil and freshwater objectives under four United Nations Resolutions. Robyn Williams: So, mosquitoes, those sorts of things have to go? Its filled with resources that evolutionarily they are suited to eat, says Mike. About half of south-west WAs 8000 plant species are found nowhere else, as are many animals including the numbat, western swamp tortoise and honey possum which feeds on the nectar of flowering plants, such as banksias. All of these groups need to be around the table because they all have something important to contribute. Australias South West: A Hotspot for Wildlife nd Plants that Deserve World Heritage Status. Would you say that we have to preserve everything, or learn how to preserve enough? The IUCN red list uses a series of categories to rank how close a species is to extinction, from "least concern" through to "extinct in the wild". Human population growth is reducing biodiversity in the following ways: Many ecosystems have been lost during the past 200 years. A genial Aussie with an American accent, Mike gesticulates as he meanders from one fascinating topic to another. The World Wildlife Fund argues that Perth may be the wildlife capital of the world, with over 2,100 plant species, 15 amphibian species and 156 native birds , with seasonal influxes from visiting seabirds and migrating shorebirds (World Wildlife Fund 2013). It wasnt always my plan to come back;but it had a lot to do with these conservation projects, the 26-year-old tells me. And we play around with the way the world works at our peril, and we may find ourselves being unable to reverse the situation or control the situation when repeated studies have shown us that we are close to planetary tipping points of human pressure on the environment, whether that's through climate change, through human consumption patterns, through us driving species extinct without any real sense of the role that those species play in our own life-support, let alone the support of the ecological systems on Earth. This enables decision makers to avoid and minimise impacts and, where necessary, develop complementary management strategies, such as biodiversity offsets and restoration to manage residual impacts. We facilitate end user driven, relevant research to create opportunities for meaningful change in biodiversity conservation and enable sustainable development. Another problem with Australias national parks is that the land they cover is not often intensively managed and this may not be the best way to protect native wildlife. Australia has a high percentage of endemic species (meaning, they occur nowhere else in the world). The main factor in the loss of biodiversity is the increased rate of population growth. Much like climate change, the global challenge of biodiversity loss is defined by large geographic and economic disparities. Nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) of the Australian landmass is pastoral or agricultural land. Biodiversity is valued by people for many reasons. Its a cold, wet winters night in Woomargama, in southern NSW, and were looking for squirrel gliders along a green road a patch of old-growth woodland on Bruce Lynchs farm. So, in other words, that sort of message seems to say you need to consult the conservationists before you do something and rewilding is an interesting move. Iain Gordon, a biodiversity expert with the CSIRO in Townsville, says land quality is as important as quantity. We cause global warming by releasing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, which will alter the nature of ecosystems everywhere. This means our south west is a region where exceptional concentrations of endemic species are undergoing exceptional loss of habitat. Thats going to put the temperature up at least one degree[enough] to destroy the habitat. These findings were backed up by Siegy in 2009, when his own research showed honeyeaters flying hundreds of metres between banksias. In 2016 the Western Australian government passed the Biodiversity Conservation Act, which will eventually fully replace both the Wildlife Act 1950 and the Sandalwood Act 1929. Since living organisms interact in dynamic ecosystems, the disappearance of one species can have a far-reaching impact on the food chain. In other words, I love everything and every part of biodiversity, I think it's a crying shame and it's an irreversible loss when we lose that. Australia's biodiversity is in a bad way From time to time, you might hear that another animal is endangered or that more trees have been cut down to make way for new housing. Two-thirds. We overharvest resources which reduces both population sizes and genetic diversity of commercial species, such as fish. The commission completed its report last July and the government sat on it until a . Its a legacy.. In the early days the settlers would have been targeting sections of the landscape that had yellow box to clear for pasture.. Richard Fuller: That's exactly right, and especially with migratory organisms it's really tough to get it right. Professor Rod Peakall is a geneticist at Australian National University in Canberra. This has led to loss and fragmentation of habitats, with a range of biological effects, which include the slow dismantling of ecological communities and species habitat resulting in eventual species extinctions and loss of biodiversity richness. We have an obligation to look after them and the land looks after us, Bruce says. Its also revolutionised the way they manage their 356ha pastoral property, located in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. "If you look at where we've had the greatest rates of faunal decline, where Australia has had the highest levels of reductions in our animals has been on the Nullarbor Plain," Mr Andrews told the ABC earlier this month. Greater knowledge enables efficient decisions that take account of the needs and certainty of all stakeholders. Thank you for reading. live, learn and work. We introduce exotic species which damage land and water resources and sometimes bring diseases with them. 141 of Australias 207 mammal species, 25 unique to the state; more than 400 reptile species, more than 40% unique to the state; hundreds of thousands of invertebrate species; and. Robyn Williams: And what else, apart from birds? Conservation of Australia's biodiversity Biodiversity is the variety of all life forms on earth - the different plants, animals and micro-organisms and the ecosystems of which they are a part. Others have come up with similar figures. Everyday, more people need more space, consume more resources and generate more waste as world population continues to grow at an alarming rate. The beginning of biodiversity conservation in WA is rooted in the setting aside of land by the State for the protection of flora and fauna in the late 1800s and early 1900s when the first reserve declared was in September 1899 for the purpose of the Protection of Boronia near Albany; and the first national park, Greenmount National Park (which has now become John Forest National Park) was established in 1900 on the outskirts of Perth. [The] challenge is not to prognosticate about the height of the piles of dead species that will litter the wayside of the future if we stick with current strategies. Mitsch and Gosselink describe wetland environments as falling between the cracks of two disciplines (Mitsch & Gosselink 2007). It is estimated that about 30 billion species have lived since multicellular life evolved, but only about 0.01% of that number live on Earth today. There have been periods in the Earth's long history when mass extinctions have occurred. Southwest Western Australia 2.1 During its visit to Western Australia (WA) on 7-8 November 2011, the Committee held a public hearing in Perth, before visiting various sites in the southwest corner of the state. Approaching the design of estuary cities in the Climate Century demands a form of estuary . Of the 109 countries studied, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, China and the United States (primarily Hawaii) also ranked inside the top seven as the worst offenders on conservation. Wetlands are the most productive of all biological systems and support a heterogeneous range of wildlife, both aquatic and terrestrial (Jennings 1996). Ecological conditions range from pristine to ecologically extinct. The fact is, in the past few hundred years, Australia has the worst record in the world for mammal extinctions. Robyn Williams: And that's quite an interesting example, isn't it, because if you are a bird lover or even some of those furry creatures, then if they are migratory they need to turn up in a certain place so that their timing is right for the emergence of certain insects in great numbers, and if the insects aren't there, these creatures just starve. They are not going to damage other species in those rainforests because theyve always been there. The loss of species diversity has reached unsafe levels across 58% of the world's land surface, according to a new assessment led by Museum scientists. Biodiversity loss and climate change are both driven by economic activities and neither will be successfully resolved unless both are tackled together, according to a joint report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The resolution requires a robust, rigorous and defensible scientific information base. The idea of a legacy seems to be a common theme: Like an artist creating a paintingwe wanted to leave something behind that we had made some contribution to, says Wayne. Australia is one of seven countries responsible for more than half of global biodiversity loss, according to a study published today. Our power usage globally has almost tripled in the last 50 years. These trends are all shaped by other indirect . Governments are failing us Join us in calling for change JOIN THE MOVEMENT TODAY It concludes that the condition of Australia's environment is "poor and deteriorating". Key points: Australia second behind Indonesia for biodiversity loss Spending on conservation reduced loss Habitat loss, invasive species drive species decline in Australia I know that you worked to some extent with Hugh Possingham who I think was the Queensland Chief Scientist last year, this year as well, and he came into an argument in South Australia talking about the need to cull koalas because in a certain area they were interfering with, say, the tree growth and suchlike. These include: A primary cause of biodiversity loss is a general lack of public awareness and appreciation of biodiversity and its values, this disconnect with nature often results in a lack of empathy with our natural heritage, and biodiversity. Take a look at what some of our readers had to say about Australia's biodiversity loss. Despite all we know, biodiversity loss is at an all-time high On The Science Show with Robyn Williams Students learn about food webs at school. Introduction of exotic plants and animals, and disease. Australian Geographic acknowledges the First Nations people of Australia as traditional custodians, and pay our respects to Elders past and present, and their stories and journeys that have lead us to where we are today. They identified key pressures on biodiversity loss to be agricultural development and increasing population. Would you agree with him? This is a last chance decade for both biodiversity and climate: up to one million species are threatened by extinction . At the University of Queenslands Fuller Biodiversity Lab, Richard Fuller, with colleagues and students studies the connection between people and nature. Unfortunately, monitoring since 2001 showed an unexpected and rapid decline in the population of woylies across the south-west of Western Australia. Its clear that conventional conservation is not working and not lasting.. 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