Richard Fuller: We study migration in fish and butterflies. In this section, explore all the different ways you can be a part of the Museum's groundbreaking research, as well as come face-to-face with our dedicated staff. In addition, they may compete with native plants and animals for food and shelter. 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. Did megafauna that used to roam Australia become extinct because of climate change or because of hunting? This adds to the threat to biodiversity which has already been placed under stress by other human activities. Biological diversity - or biodiversity - is the term given to the variety of life on Earth. A good example is the noisy miner, a species of bird which is superabundant in places where we have fragmented the landscape and created lots of edge habitat that that bird really loves. Land-use change for urbanisation, agricultural, minerals and industrial development. We need new strategies, Mike says. Australia is ranked third in the world for the most species extinction, and number one when it comes to extinctions of mammals. Yet the pressures placed on ecosystems from human impact and changing climate are increasing, with more species lost due to extinction. The landholders are Wayne Stokes and his partner Marcia Macartney, former public servants who moved here from Canberra almost two decades ago. One of our key research interests is the connection between people and nature, and I come at this really from two angles. Since living organisms interact in dynamic ecosystems, the disappearance of one species can have a far-reaching impact on the food chain. It does have its place in communicating the role of different aspects of nature, the right to wrongs of different environmental management settings, for example. Your information is being handled in accordance with the. Nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) of the Australian landmass is pastoral or agricultural land. Biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history. Wetlands are neither water nor earth but exist in the meeting of these two, changing seasonally to become more or less of each element, and blending the two elements to form mud. A new study reveal why this may be the case. This South West Biodiversity Hotspot has 8379 native vascular plants (species + subspecies), 47% (3911) of which are endemic (found nowhere else on the planet) 1. Many bird species have been lost in Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia. 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. 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: And what else, apart from birds? While researching the scarlet pear gum, an endemic eucalypt, Stephen found it to be visited almost exclusively by honeyeaters, suggesting that some eucalypts are better suited to bird than insect pollinators. 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. Australia is one of seven countries responsible for more than half of global biodiversity loss, according to a study published today. Instead, he argues that the hotspot has the highest incidence on Earth 15 per cent of plants pollinated by birds and mammals, and this might explain why it is so unusual. Many pastoral properties contain significant conservation values, both in the traditionally understood sense of biodiversity values but also [in the] ecosystem services they provide, such as being a source of fresh water, says Doug Humann, CEO of Bush Heritage. Developed by a partnership of the UK Business & Biodiversity Forum, IEMA, RSPB, WSP, the Aldersgate Group and . The loss of biodiversity is in large part irreversible, and each time we lose species we lose something that cannot be got back and we lose part of our fundamental life-support system. Australia is the only western country to have large areas of rainforest intact. Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/australias-south-west-a-hotspot-for-wildlife-and-plants-that-deserves-world-heritage-status-54885. The greatest threat to biodiversity is the size and rate of growth of human population. Land clearing on a property in northern NSW in August 2017 after biodiversity laws were weakened. The importance of the Australian rainforests to the conservation movement is very high. Further down the line, if the breeding program is successful, the idea is to release them into lowland rainforests. We pay our respects to Elders both past and present. Well, someone who would have been devastated by this news is Tom Lovejoy, the ecologist who worked for years in the Amazon. 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. Tom Lovejoy: Well, I'm not arguing that you can't use biological resources, in fact that's what is so wonderful about them, they make more themselves. Indigenous people have been interacting with Australia's natural environment for tens of thousands of years. 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. And so, how many times have you come to arguments? But now this almighty raptor, affectionately known as The Red, has become our nations rarest bird of prey. Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. More than 80% of Australias flowering plants and land mammals are endemic, as are 88% of our reptiles, 45% of our birds and 92% of our frogs. Robyn Williams: Yes, but isn't that the kind of blank cheque argument that the hard economic realities will no longer accept? 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. Using his palaeontology background, Mike has devised a bold and potentially controversial plan to save the species. Most of our work on Our World in Data focuses on data and research on human well-being and prosperity. The drivers of biodiversity loss and climate change are related, but are not exactly the same. Loss of species is a major threat to biodiversity in Australia. Robyn Williams: Apart from noisy miners, what sort of research are you doing at your lab? Mikes proposal is certainly a bold and innovative idea and DECCW is exploring it with him, says Linda Broome. Australia among seven nations responsible for more than 50 per cent of global biodiversity loss, Catch up with The Loop, your quick wrap of this morning's news. Theres no doubt in my mind that we can do this if were not fettered by pessimisminnovative approaches are popping up all over Australia.. Recent reports and studies have . Since the arrival of Europeans in Australia, just over 200 years ago, there has been an extraordinary increase in the rate of environmental change and in the loss of biodiversity. Mining is only 0.2 per cent of that land area, says Mike. This is also a property where theres been sightings of swift parrots, a migratory species which breeds during summer in Tasmania and makes a perilous flight across Bass Strait to winter in Victoria and southern NSW. Stephen believes that eucalypts and banksias in south-west WA have developed features that encourage birds to pollinate trees further away, thereby increasing genetic diversity of their seed. 3. Richard Fuller: Yes, I would completely agree, and of course I think the former two are the driver of the third, in a sense. While private conservation partners, such as Bush Heritage and the NCT, are buying up properties to fill some gaps, other gaps can be plugged by bringing communities of private landholders on board. For them, the goal is to leave their land in a much better state than when they inherited it. I'm really interested in conservation, and conservation ultimately depends on repairing the broken relationship between people and biodiversity. Unless you understand the processes you may disadvantage the species by not supporting the processes that brought it into being in the first place, he told Australian Geographic. Others have come up with similar figures. Rather I am saying that if you look at countries like Haiti or El Salvador in the hemisphere that I know, which have already lost a lot of their biological resources, they are places which have lowering standards of living and social and political problems, and in fact reach out beyond their borders and affect even the United States. Did megafauna, such as Procoptodon (the giant short-faced kangaroo) or Diprotodon (the giant wombat-like marsupial), that used to roam Australia, become extinct because of climate change or because of hunting? So we are certainly facing enormous challenges, but I am also optimistic, I do see strong responses to that, both at governmental level but really driven by a groundswell of change, and I think that connection between people and nature is really fundamental, and enhancing that connection enables us to articulate more clearly and argue more persuasively for change at the highest level. 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. unsustainable logging, hunting and fishing), pollution (e.g. 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. Wetlands are the most productive of all biological systems and support a heterogeneous range of wildlife, both aquatic and terrestrial (Jennings 1996). We overharvest resources which reduces both population sizes and genetic diversity of commercial species, such as fish. In short, biodiversity provides us with clean air, fresh water, good quality soil and crop pollination. 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". 44-50. 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. He says the work is important because a bird-pollinated system of plants is likely to be quite different to one pollinated by insects and could yield novel insights. A variety of grants are already available as incentives from public and private bodies. Human population growth is reducing biodiversity in the following ways: Many ecosystems have been lost during the past 200 years. That's a native bird but it has been declared a key threatening process by the Australian government in its role in disrupting other bird communities. UN Common Approach to Biodiversity. Image copyrightHolly Story. You can imagine a migratory species showing up and being unable to refuel on its journey, for example. An estimated 10 % of Perths original wetlands remain. By examining extinction rates in the fossil record and Australias relationship to the size of different islands, Mike has calculated that to give all Australian species a good chance of surviving whatever the future throws at them will require a minimum of about 1.5 million sq. Government of Western Australia. More than 80% of Australia's flowering plants and land mammals are endemic, as are 88% of our reptiles, 45% of our birds and 92% of our frogs. As part of its Caring for Country initiative released in 2008 the Federal Government allocated $180 million to buy land, aiming to increase the National Reserve System from 11 per cent (890,000 sq. We facilitate end user driven, relevant research to create opportunities for meaningful change in biodiversity conservation and enable sustainable development. "We found that conservation spending strongly reduced [the biodiversity decline score]," they stated. In coming years, Bruce and Mark are likely to fare much better than farmers who have not been making these changes Well still have to adapt to climate change to make a living, Mark says. You have reached the end of the page. Between 7 and 10% of all species on Earth are located in Australia, with 85% of Australia's plant species endemic to the continent. And the reason it does that is because we've messed up the habitats in the first place. They identified key pressures on biodiversity loss to be agricultural development and increasing population. Image credit: gadigal yilimung (shield) madeby UncleCharlesChickaMadden. Biodiversity is the diversity of species, ecosystems and genes on earth. This is Lovejoy on The Science Show some years ago: Tom Lovejoy: After a great deal of thinking about it, it seems to us that there is no intelligent way to choose between one species and another, and in fact it's not an intelligent choice to make. [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. We have an obligation to look after them and the land looks after us, Bruce says. "Modest recovery of biodiversity in a western European country: The Living Planet Index for the Netherlands", Biological Conservation, Vol. Twenty-five kilometres north-west of the Murray River, the farm is near Albury, NSW. 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. "Native biodiversity is definitely improved by removing invasive plants and to a lesser extent invasive species.". (Nigel Jackett), How tsunami have impacted Australias east coast and a new approach to limit the threat, Politicians unfairly maligned Robin Batterham, Submerged mats could dissipate energy of tsunami, Autonomous minibus and predicting the behaviour of pedestrians, Harry Butler honoured and how a scientist fell in love with a fossil, A tour of the antimatter factory and John Wheeler remembered. To slow erosion, Bruce and Mark have planted eucalypts and silver wattles along creek lines and have built dams that capture sediment and stop soil being washed away. Biodiversity and Conservation Science staff have expertise in animal biology, animal breeding, aquatic ecology, biological survey, collections . Two-thirds of Australia has lost its unique birdlife.' Its a refuge where family and friends can come and connect with the environment, says Marcia. Have you ever wondered what Perth was like before it was a city? Since the arrival of Europeans in Australia, just over 200 years ago, there has been an extraordinary increase in the rate of environmental change and in the loss of biodiversity. This is due to the States geographical expanse, climatic diversity, areas of relative wilderness, regions with extremely nutrient-impoverished soils, and the fact that significant areas of WA have not been covered by sea or glaciated over geological time. Western Australia's unique biodiversity Western Australia's globally unique biodiversity Western Australia (WA) has a globally unique biodiversity characterised by significant regional endemism, meaning that we have plants and animals that only live in a particular location. High value biodiversity within the State is at escalating risk though a range of processes including: As a consequence, a growing number of ecosystems and individual species are under threat. National parks are the leftover bits, he says. And Australia should worry about its biodiversity. Our group includes Bruces son Mark, and Nigel Jones, a conservation manager with the Nature Conservation Trust of NSW (NCT). Along with UWA colleague Dr Siegy Krauss, Stephen was recently awarded $1 million from the Australian Research Council to test the evolutionary implications of this idea. Human history become extinct because of hunting due to extinction per cent ) of UK... 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