Biodiversity

Last week, local farmers, investors and Western Murray Land Improvement Group (WMLIG) celebrated the next step in their Murray Inland Delta Landscape Impact Project. With the financial world falling over themselves to get a piece of the carbon trading arena, an ambitious project has been initiated to ensure that meaningful, tangible environmental benefits can be achieved while delivering financial benefits to landholders.

Buffel and gamba grass are highly flammable and increase the intensity and frequency of bushfires and impact the biodiversity of the natural environment ... The TWG provided its findings, which recommend a Weed Advisory Committee be formed to build on the findings and develop a management plan, with the view of declaring buffel grass a weed.

About 150 people gathered at Nornalup on March 23 to protest about the State Government’s plan to burn 80ha of nearby mostly-unlogged tingle forest. Nornalup community members are angry about the planned burn which environmentalists say is counter-productive to fire mitigation and destructive to the environment.

"The order was renewed last year for only 12 months, during which time farmers and other stakeholders were promised consultation and a count of the wild dog population across Victoria," said Libbe Paton, North East Wild Dog Action Group. "Neither of these promises have been upheld to date."

The Territory Labor Government has determined the next step to reduce the impact of buffel grass in Central Australia. The Buffel Grass Technical Working Group (TWG) was formed in 2023 to address environmental concerns around buffel grass, which makes wildfires more intense and impacts biodiversity.

Patricia Gill. Denmark school students are part of a landscape-scale move to re-establish the breeding of black cockatoos in the region. To spark their students’ enthusiasm, environmentalist Simon Cherriman visited four schools recently and helped the students build four nesting boxes at each school from recycled materials ... The Denmark Men’s Shed will build 40 nest boxes ...

A scientific survey is being carried out in the Perth Hills, near Mundaring. Scientists are seeking to better understand the health of the forest through the simple art of listening. Using the emerging science of eco-acoustics, researchers are monitoring forest soundscapes to better understand and benchmark ecosystem health.

Invasive species are being trapped and removed in record numbers across the Sunshine Coast, in a united effort between Sunshine Coast Council and the community to protect our region’s biodiversity. In 2023, Council’s team removed 335 feral deer from registered properties in the region, almost triple the previous record set in 2021.

Why do we have sacred topics? Ideas, theories or policies that appear to be off limits ... Three sacred topics of late have been Covid-19, climate and carbon. What happens when ‘misinformation’ actually is proven correct?

A Gulmarrad wildlife corridor that is one of the last remnants of habitat for the endangered Glossy Black Cockatoo in the Clarence Valley which is at risk due to a nine-lot subdivision determined in 2007 has seen a new approach, bringing together the landholder and conservationists to attempt to preserve the habitat and wildlife.

The Australian Government signed the “30 x 30” target at COP15 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in December 2022, with a commitment to ensure that 30 per cent of the earth’s land and sea is protected through the establishment of Protected Areas (PAs) and Other Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) ... The WWF has urged the Australian Government to set up a $5B Green Fund to acquire forests, productive land and reforest wheat fields.   The land needed to meet the 30:30 objective has to be “high biodiversity value” land in accordance with the Global Biodiversity Framework.

In this article Robert Onfray details the lack of environmental scrutiny of the wind factories and pumped hydro projects built or planned in Queensland as the state sanctions the wholesale clearing of remnant native forest on the coastal ranges straddling the Great Dividing Range ... 10,178 hectares of koala and 6,744 hectares of greater glider habitats are set to disappear if all the renewable proposals in Queensland are approved ... "blunt force trauma" is to be used to euthanise injured animals or those that cannot be relocated, particularly koalas.

The Victorian government’s regulation of timber harvesting, which has led to the impending closure of Gippsland’s native forest industry in January, directly contradicts the joint national-state approach to ensure biodiversity alongside a timber industry over the previous 30 years, analysis shows ... When setting up the National Forest Policy Statement in the 1990s, the JANIS working group – conservation scientists and planners from all states and the CSIRO – drew up the criteria to form a CAR (comprehensive, adequate and representative) reserve system.

Two black-and-white ruffed lemurs have been paired together at the Altina Wildlife Park near Darlington Point. The species is critically endangered due to poaching and deforestation and one is from England and will provide genetic diversity to the Australian lemur population.

Forestry Australia has released three new and highly topical Position Statements to share its evidence-based positions on important issues relating to the management of forests across Australia ... “Now more than ever we need to ensure that there is evidence-based and balanced information readily available, given we live in an era of information overload, misinformation and disinformation”: Forestry Australia President, Dr Michelle Freeman.

Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has welcomed a Senate Inquiry into the spread of red imported fire ants. Mr Littleproud said the inquiry was urgently needed, with Labor losing control of its National Fire Ant Eradication Program and failing to commit to the funding required.

Geoff Park. I recently watched an excellent short video by PBS Eons on the rise of ants and the importance of flowering plants in the story ... This increase [of ants] seems to parallel the rise of flowering plants, a rise which involved many symbiotic relationships ... These complex relationships were very apparent to me as I wandered around the bush at our place, camera in hand.

Following the cancellation of Shenhua’s plans to mine on the Liverpool Plains, work is underway to regenerate the land for the benefit of the community and the environment ... While some land has been sold to farmers, a 6,300ha parcel of land has been kept in public hands and is being managed by Local Land Services under a biodiversity project known as The Waratah Project.

The 2022 official audit of VicForests has found an average 96 per cent compliance with the state's forestry environmental standards ... This audit was conducted according to four themes: environmental values in State forests, conservation of biodiversity, operational planning and record keeping, and coupe infrastructure for timber harvesting operations.

Suzie Christensen. The Checkpoint program conducted in July 2023 has found no sign of rats or mice on Lord Howe Island for over two years, signalling a significant milestone in the Rodent Eradication Project ... More than 950 detection device checks were undertaken using 140 tracking tunnels, 32 trail cameras, and 300 wax tags and chew cards, along with sweeps with detection dogs.