When the Hume Highway was widened, hundreds of nest boxes were installed to replace habitat for three threatened species. Four years of monitoring has concluded the program is entirely unsuccessful.
- Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University
From fisheries to forestry, there’s a pattern to collapsing ecosystems and industries. If we can predict them, maybe we can avoid the damage.
There’s rarely good news in conservation - but we’ve been studying a program that actually works.
We’ll have to get our priorities in order to protect Australia’s wildlife.
In February 2009 the Black Saturday bushfires swept through the Mountain Ash forests of Victoria, burning 72,000 hectares. These forests are home to the tallest flowering plants on the planet, and iconic…
The Renewable Energy Target now includes wood waste from forestry. But a more sustainable use of Australia’s native forests would be to leave them alone and earn carbon credits from the avoided emissions.
The Leadbeater’s has been formally listed as critically endangered. But unless clearfelling in the possums’ stronghold stops, it will continue down the road of extinction.
The 20-year-old agreements that are supposed to safeguard much of Australia’s forests, are not working. Now they are up for renewal, and it’s time for a complete rethink, writes David Lindenmayer.
Each year rangers in the Australian Capital Territory cull kangaroos as part of the territory’s Kangaroo Management Plan. This year they killed a few over 1,500 kangaroos. Even though millions of kangaroos…
Whoever wins power in Victoria’s election tomorrow will no doubt have a long to-do list. Here’s an urgent item: protect the mountain ash forests of the state’s Central Highlands. We have discovered that…
Victoria’s forest management policies need to be urgently reviewed in response to the discovery that logging can contribute to the severity of bushfires in wet forests, like the devastating fires on Black…
From reef dredging, to shark culling, to opening old-growth forests to logging, environmental policies are leaving Australia’s wildlife exposed to threats. The reason, we propose, is that society and government…
Large, older trees have been found to grow faster and absorb carbon dioxide more rapidly than younger, smaller trees, despite the previous view that trees’ growth slowed as they developed. Research published…
The Central Highlands of Victoria are home to the world’s tallest flowering plants, the Mountain Ash, and one of Australia’s most endangered mammals, the Leadbeater’s Possum. Both are threatened by ongoing…
By any scientific yardstick, forestry operations in Victoria cannot be regarded as ecologically sustainable. Much of the attention of politicians, policy makers and the general public has been on the tall…
We have studied the effects of current widespread clear-felling in Victoria’s Mountain ash forests for almost three decades. Clear-felling now loses large amounts of money for the state of Victoria, degrades…
One of my most vivid and lasting memories as an ecologist dates back to 1997. I was in the office of the then Environment Minister. I was told by the Minister and his minders that “we already knew everything…
Australia’s Biodiversity Fund was announced in July 2011 as part of the “Clean Energy Future” package. We welcome the expenditure of almost a billion dollars over the next six years on biodiversity conservation…
A recent article in Nature Neuroscience contends that optimism is hard-wired – that we are more likely to update our knowledge with positive than negative news. So what happens if all the news seems bad…
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