Across Australia, landholders are signing conservation agreements or covenants to protect biodiversity on their property. These agreements, offered by state governments, create private protected areas…
Decades of work to reduce rhino poaching has achieved little. Farming rhino is one alternative, but what happens to a species when it’s domesticated?
Jim Epler
When we talk of conserving an animal species what do we actually mean? We are likely to have in mind a vision of a rhinoceros (or any other species, for that matter) being given the opportunity to pursue…
The dingo fence is a blunt instrument; we could do better.
Paleontour/Flickr
We feel we have to set the record straight after some of our (Bradshaw’s) comments were taken grossly out of context, or not considered at all (Ritchie’s). A bubbling kerfuffle in the media over the last…
Forests spark emotional debates in Australia. Much of the rhetoric is about saving “the last of Tasmania’s wild forests” or how we must “stop logging in Australian native forests”. Australian forests…
Working with farmers, Australian researchers have come up with technology and methods to make farming kinder to the environment.
Chesapeake Bay Program
The misconception of Australian agriculture being inefficient and unsustainable is deeply concerning for me. Images of dusty ploughed fields and dying sheep and trees are misleading. On the contrary, if…
Collaboration is the only way to preserve biodiversity.
Kasi Metcalfe
Plans for conserving Australian species rely on successfully collaborating across regions and across jurisdictions. It makes sense: species don’t recognise state or local government boundaries. But at…
Scientists are clear that tuna catch needs to be cut, but figuring out who will fish less and where is much trickier.
AAP
The eighth meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission concluded in Guam on Friday 30 March 2012. Five hundred delegates from more than 40 countries argued for a week about how to reduce…
Habitat of the Eastern Curlew along its migratory pathway in east Asia is rapidly being reclaimed for development.
Dean Ingwersen
Australia is a signed up member of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and a strong supporter of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Both these global programs are trying to reduce the rate…
Species have trouble getting around without landscape-scale corridors.
Michael Dawes
In the 1980s, ecologists were locked in a debate about how best to preserve biodiversity. Which, they asked, was better: a single large reserve, or several small reserves? The debate was never resolved…
For whom the bell tolls: a Little Penguin.
Belinda Cannell
Little Penguins off the coast of Perth are being found dead - starved, battered, and in some cases almost completely beheaded - as elements both natural and manmade conspire against them. Penguin Island…
Dingos are introduced, but have they gone native?
AAP
Native status is a big deal. It affects where conservation dollars are spent, and our inherent reaction to a species. Most people believe that native equals good and alien equals bad, but in some cases…
The colony of King Penguins on Macquarie Island was almost extinct by 1930.
John van den Hoff
Eighty years after slipping to the brink of extinction, a colony of King Penguins at Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean has rebounded and is flourishing through conservation efforts, Australian researchers…
Looking at embryonic cells allows researchers to understand many of the fundamental questions about how an animal’s genes are structured and the role they play in developing the adult animal. This information…
Pet cats are single-minded hunters, but are they wiping out native species?
bolg/Flickr
In “The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson”, Mark Twain equated keeping a cat to domestic bliss: When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there – in sunny weather…
The US has information about its threatened species, but isn’t acting on it.
photommo/Flickr
We know very little about the world’s biodiversity. A recent study suggests that, despite 250 years of taxonomic effort, a mere 14% of the world’s species are recognised by scientists. Worryingly, anthropogenic…
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University