Environment report ‘shocking’

FROM sea level rise and species survival to coastal erosion and coral bleaching, Australia’s environment is in poor shape and is expected to deteriorate further, according to a “shocking” new government report.

The five-yearly, 2000-page State of the Environment Report, to be released by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek on Tuesday, looks in detail at the condition of the country after successive years of bushfires, floods, droughts and extreme heatwaves.

Ms Plibersek described it as a “shocking document ... (that) tells a story of crisis and decline in Australia’s environment”. Among other grim findings, the report reveals the list of Australian plants and animals under threat has grown 8 per cent since the last report in 2016, with 202 species joining the list.

The country now has more foreign plant species than native, the report’s authors noted.

Lead author Professor Emma Johnston from Sydney University said Australia was being hit by more extreme weather events, and these could have a cascading effect.

“There have been three mass bleachings on the Great Barrier Reef in the past five years … that is a ridiculous high frequency,” Professor Johnston said.

“You don’t have enough time for recovery,” she said. “They’re often compounding, so you get one extreme event followed by another.

“So for example we had the bushfires of 2019-2020, immediately followed by flooding rains, which pushed ash and mud and vegetation into our rivers and estuaries, and so for the first time we’ve documented impacts of wildfire in estuaries.

“We’re seeing new impact types because we’re getting these new or more substantial extreme events.”

While climate change is putting many environmental systems under pressure, she said one of the most “fixable” problems was land clearing.