Fake Left sheet, The Guardian has labelled a “national disgrace” the loss of biodiversity across Australia as massive rates of land clearing and urbanisation over-run the natural habitat:
More than 1,800 plant and animal species and ecological communities are at risk of extinction right now…
Australia’s management of threatened species… has seen the country lose more than 50 animal and 60 plant species in the past 200 years and record the highest rate of mammalian extinction in the world over that period…
More than 1,800 plant and animal species and ecological communities (woodlands, forests and wetlands are examples of ecological communities) are currently at risk of extinction, a number that is increasing but which is also likely to be an underestimate of how many are truly vulnerable…
The federal government’s most recent State of the Environment report concluded that Australia’s biodiversity had declined further since 2011 and new approaches were needed to address this downward trajectory for many species.
The same report found there had been no decrease in the main pressures faced by native plants and animals, namely habitat loss and degradation, climate change, land use practices and invasive plant and animal species.
Guardian Australia interviewed scientists, researchers, conservationists and policy analysts whose work across threatened species research and protection spans decades.
AdvertisementThey described the situation confronting Australia’s threatened plants and animals as a “national disgrace” and the systems that are supposed to protect them as “broken”…
Euan Ritchie, an associate professor in wildlife ecology and conservation at Deakin University, says the plight of Australia’s threatened species is an “environmental crisis”, with more and more species edging closer to extinction “despite our capacity to prevent such a tragedy from occurring”…
James Trezise, policy analyst at the Australian Conservation Foundation, says Australia has an extinction crisis and governments are failing to implement the reforms and investment necessary to turn the situation around…
The experts who spoke to Guardian point to a range of complex and intertwined issues affecting the decline of threatened species in Australia, which have occurred under governments on both sides of the political aisle over many years and will be explored throughout the series.
Among them are: massive rates of land clearing, urbanisation, weakening of protections under the EPBC Act, cuts to environment budgets, poor monitoring of species, poor coordination between federal and state governments, a lack of legislation compelling governments to actually fund recovery actions for listed species once they’ve been identified, and a lack of accountability measures to ensure actions that are being taken are working or assess what processes have failed when a species goes extinct…
It beggars belief that in all the hand-wringing over Australia’s biodiversity loss, The Guardian failed to mention the primary driver: Australia’s rapid population growth.
The latest Australian Government State of the Environment report directly linked Australia’s population growth to environmental destruction, as noted by Professor William Jackson:
The federal government’s State of the Environment 2016 report (prepared by a group of independent experts, which I chaired), released today, predicts that population growth and economic development will be the main drivers of environmental problems such as land-use change, habitat destruction, invasive species, and climate change…
We continue to lose agricultural lands through urban encroachment. Over the past five years land-clearing rates stabilised in all states and territories except Queensland, where the rate of clearing increased.
Coastal waterways are threatened by pollutants, including microplastics and nanoparticles…
Population growth in our major cities, along with Australia’s reliance on private cars, is leading to greater traffic volumes, which increase traffic congestion and delays as well as pollution…
In 2010, Flinders University released a report to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) examining the “Long-Term Physical Implications of Net Overseas Migration” (NOM). This report concluded that “higher levels of NOM impose greater adverse impacts on the quality of our natural and built environments” and that the “geographical concentration… within Sydney, Melbourne and Perth… substantially increases their environmental impact”. The report also found that “decreased urban water supply is a significant environmental constraint exacerbated by higher levels of NOM”. In particular, “modelling shows the vulnerability of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to deficits in water supply“.
The Flinders University report also noted that Australia’s water resources could only cope with NOM of up to 50,000 people a year (versus 210,000 currently):
Only NOM levels of 50,000 pa or less result in Melbourne and Sydney maintaining a small surplus of net surface supply over demand on average out to 2050, assuming current climate conditions persist. Potential options to alleviate water stress at high NOM levels over the longer term may be hard to find.
Also in 2010, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), who is quoted in the article above, called for Australia’s population to be stabilised and nominated human population growth as a “key threatening process” to Australia’s biodiversity.
Meanwhile, well-known environmentalist and former Australian of the Year recipient, Professor Tim Flannery, has estimated that the long-term human carrying capacity of the Australian continent and Tasmania might be as low as 8 million to 12 million people and has many times called for the nation’s population to be stabilised.
In 1994, when Australia’s population was just under 18 million, the Australian Academy of Science (AAS) convened a symposium on the future population of Australia. Its analysis was extended to Australia’s resources of water, minerals and arable land, and the interactions between present lifestyle and present environmental damage, and between future expectations and the costs of increasing population.
The AAS cautioned that “if our population reaches the high end of the feasible range (37 million), the quality of life of all Australians will be lowered by the degradation of water, soil, energy and biological resources” and concluded that “the quality of all aspects of our children’s lives will be maximised if the population of Australia by the mid-21st Century is kept to the low, stable end of the achievable range, i.e. to approximately 23 million”.
Just 24 years later, Australia’s population is approaching 25 million, thus already exceeding the AAS’ recommended maximum population mid-century.
International organisations and commentators, too, have raised alarm at population growth’s impacts on the environment.
Late last year, 15,364 scientists from 180 countries – “the largest group of scientists to have ever put their names to a research paper focused on climate change” – also put their names to a BioScience journal article calling for population growth to be limited, and governments to stop only focusing on economic growth.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has nominated human population growth as the key risk factor for endangered species, noting that “the current rate of extinctions is 100 times what would be considered normal without the impact of human activity… more of us means more of that” (see below graphic).
Legendary documentary maker, David Attenborough, has also nominated population growth as the most fundamental issue facing the world.
The fact of the matter is that there are few better policy solutions to protect Australia’s environment than limiting population growth and abandoning plans for a ‘Big Australia’, which necessarily means significantly cutting immigration.
Australia’s birthrate of 1.8 is below replacement level and the nation’s population would stablise at 27 million by 2060 under zero net overseas migration, according to the Productivity Commission. By contrast, if current mass immigration setting are maintained, Australia’s population will exceed 40 million – a difference of at least 13 million people (see below chart).
The above does once again highlight the complete and utter negligence of The Australian Greens and the Left more generally. Despite their purported concerns for the environment, the Left have remained deathly silent on Australia’s world-beating immigration program and have refused to argue the case publicly for a smaller and more sustainable population for Australia.
Will the real Left please stand up?
