• Tackling Australia’s extinction crisis

    Euan Ritchie     |      May 13, 2022

    Despite its sunny, unspoiled international promotion, Australia has one of the worst conservation records in the world and the new government must take action to reverse the damage before it’s too late.

  • Australia faces an avalanche of extinctions

    Open Forum     |      April 25, 2022

    A new report lays out a range of ways an incoming government can act to avert the threat of mass extinctions facing Australia’s unique wildlife.

  • Native life returns to NSW’s ‘wild deserts’

    Sherry Landow     |      February 28, 2022

    Three native mammal species – bilbies, crest-tailed mulgaras and Shark Bay bandicoots – are booming since their recent reintroduction to Sturt National Park in the far-west NSW outback.

  • Grim prospects for Australia’s wildlife

    Open Forum     |      September 2, 2021

    The first comprehensive list of the threats to Australia’s most endangered plants and animals reveals blunt news about the future for some of the country’s favourite species.

  • Saving the mountain pygmy-possum

    Lachlan Gilbert     |      May 24, 2021

    The critically endangered Pygmy Mountain-possum will soon be bred and acclimatised to conditions in Lithgow with a view to releasing them into a temperate lowland environment.

  • 5 ways to improve the government’s plan for threatened wildlife

    Euan Ritchie     |      January 23, 2021

    The first Threatened Species Strategy fizzled out last year without making a big difference to conservation. With the next strategy due to roll out this year, let’s look at what needs to change.

  • Gippsland lakes revisited

    Max Thomas     |      November 17, 2020

    Incorporating traditional cultural values – such as the idea of soil being a living entity – into science can help restore land and water habitats in the Gippsland Lakes and elsewhere.

  • Australia’s conservation laws are failing our endangered species

    Jessica Walsh     |      September 20, 2020

    The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is failing to protect Australia’s increasing numbers of critically endangered species and the wild habitats they require to survive.

  • Slithering to extinction

    Open Forum     |      September 10, 2020

    At least 11 species of snakes and lizards are likely to become extinct by 2040 unless conservation action is stepped up, with around 20 snakes and lizards also at risk of extinction.

  • Redesigning Centennial Park to care for Australia’s endangered animals

    Heidi Harrington Johnson     |      January 20, 2020

    A UNSW studio led by renowned landscape architect Professor Richard Weller has suggested a unique way to protect our threatened species.

  • Protecting the last refuges of nature

    Open Forum     |      December 21, 2019

    Logging, land clearing and development continue to ravage Australia’s natural environments, and even supposedly protected areas are increasingly open to assault by commercial interests.

  • Saving the mountain pygmy-possum from climate change

    Open Forum     |      November 8, 2019

    Scientists have come up with a radical plan to save the critically endangered mountain pygmy-possum: take some from their alpine habitat and introduce them to a warmer, lowland rainforest environment.