Directing public funds to native forest logging is bad for the economy, the climate and biodiversity, and will increase bushfire risk.
- Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University
Only three specimens of the blue-grey mouse ever existed, and two are lost. We plunged into a search for the third, in the hope we might find the species isn’t extinct at all – just missing.
Australia’s forests have controlled their own own flammability since Gondwana. We must respect this natural process.
This is the first time researchers have calculated the amount of carbon released from the world’s decaying wood. They found insects play an enormous role.
Adopting more environmentally conscious farm models would safeguard our agricultural exports, cut emissions and help protect nature.
The forestry industry wants to remove damaged logs from native forests after the bushfires. But our wildlife needs them now more than ever.
The destruction of recent fires is challenging our belief that with enough time, love and money, every threatened species can be saved. But there is plenty we can, and must, now do.
Researchers have uncovered what appears to be widespread logging of steep slopes in Victoria, which has the potential to damage critical water supplies.
The Queensland government has green-lit an updated version of Adani’s plan to protect the black-throated finch at its Carmichael mine site, after the earlier plan was branded inadequate.
In the event, the federal election turned out to be more about the economy than the environment. But there are steps the Coalition government can take to help conservation and boost the economy too.
Victoria has some of the most carbon rich native forests in the world. And we’re cutting them down for short-lived wood products.
Fires and logging changes forest soil structure for at least 30-80+ years, affecting everything from regrowth to carbon storage.
It takes a eucalyptus tree more than a hundred years to develop hollows suitable to shelter Aussie animals, and just moments to cut it down.
New research has shown how to measure conservation progress for Australia’s 238 endangered bird species
At an international summit in Egypt this month, nations will hopefully make progress towards recognising the economic value of wildlife and other environmental assets.
Logging in the Thomson Catchment could reduce water supply by the equivalent of 600,000 people by 2050.
Beyond trucking in hay and water, drought-stricken farmers need money and advice on improving the natural features of their land.
Every autumn Victoria copes with smoke haze from planned burns that reduce bushfire risk, but a large part of that pollution actually comes from industrial logging activity.
Across large ares of Australia, rocky outcrops are being obliterated to open up more land for farming. But many of these “bush rocks” are refuges for fragile ecosystems.
In the aftermath of fires or logging, conservation needs to focus on recovering the health of the remaining vegetation, not just the size of the forest or woodland.
Agreements between the Commonwealth and state governments that protect native forests are based on hopelessly out-of-date information. It’s a huge mistake to renew them without assessment.
Increased sightings of endangered species doesn’t mean it’s recovering – but that’s the argument being made by the native forest logging industry.
How do you determine the financial benefit of cutting a tree down, versus leaving it standing? Environmental accounting offers some insight.
Australia’s iconic stock routes are now public land, used for everything from conservation to recreation. A government review may change that.
Biologists have a centuries-old tradition of publishing on rare and endangered species. But poachers are using open-access information to target valuable and fragile new species.
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