According to a major assessment, Australia’s environment is sick and getting sicker as the combined effects of climate change, pollution, land removal, and mining take a deadly toll.
The natural ecosystems that support every element of life in Australia receive a five-yearly health checkup in the State of the Environment report, and the results are alarmingly poor.
An overview of the 2000-page report, which will be made public in its entirety on Tuesday, states that “the state and trajectory of the environment in Australia are generally poor and deteriorating.”
In the last five years, natural systems have undergone “abrupt” shifts, with the emergence of new dangers like climate change adding a deadly new layer to the existing list of concerns.
It claims that as a result, a growing number of threatened species are attempting to survive in ecosystems that are dwindling and deteriorating and are being ineffectively managed with insufficient funding.
“Species extinctions and declining ecosystem conditions will continue to be a result of our insufficient management of stresses, eroding the environmental capital on which present and future economies depend.”
The report’s principal authors have variously characterised it as stark and dismal. The former Morrison government declined to make the report public before the election.
Tanya Plibersek, the new environment minister, referred to it as disturbing. She will outline Labor’s strategy in a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday.
Dr. Ian Cresswell, a former director of research at the CSIRO, is one of the report’s three main writers. He claims that the lack of national investment and leadership has cost the country dearly and that it must stop.
If we don’t seriously begin addressing some of the environmental issues, we will lose the Australia that we grew up with, he warns.
According to the research, Australia relies on a patchwork of systems from several levels of government rather than a coherent framework for managing the environment.
It cautions that the Black Summer bushfires may cause an additional increase in the number of new species identified as threatened or up-listed to a higher category of peril, such as the now-officially endangered koalas, which has climbed by 8% since 2016.
Despite this, there is “largely inadequate” monitoring of threatened species and communities, with up to 46% of threatened vertebrates, 69% of threatened plants, and 70% of threatened ecological communities receiving no monitoring at all.
Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2017, an astounding 7.7 million hectares of habitat for species that are vulnerable on land were removed.
However, almost all of that—7.1 million hectares—were not evaluated in accordance with federal environmental standards.
New chapters on climate and extreme events, such as recent floods, terrestrial and marine heatwaves, droughts, and bushfires, are included in the most recent report for the first time.
Emma Johnston, a professor of marine ecology and co-chief author of the study, notes that in earlier papers, climate consequences were primarily discussed in the future tense.
But in this research, we detail the widespread effects of climate-related extreme events across the country, which have exacerbated already-existing risks like pollution, invasive species, and land destruction.
The deterioration and downbeat trends for those ecosystems are mostly being brought on by the piling of climatic impacts on top of it.
The research also shows how less money is being spent by the federal government on biodiversity while threats are rising.
According to the report, annual biodiversity spending has been between $400 and $500 million since 2010. In 2018–19, it fell below $300 million, and it has stayed below $400 million ever since.
According to Ms. Plibersek, the study, which was given to her predecessor Sussan Ley last year, should be made public.
Despite requests from its writers, Ms. Ley refused to make it public.
In a statement released before her press club speech, she referred to the report as “a terrible document” that “tells a story of catastrophe and degradation in Australia’s environment.”
“I’m excited to discuss the report and our government’s objectives,” said the speaker.
The report, which was authored by 37 experts, provides a thorough analysis of the health of the environment, the stresses it is under, and how effectively or ineffectively it is being handled.