Australia News

Coral reefs, teeming with life, are home to vibrant fish communities — which makes them extremely attractive places to go fishing. However, fishing in reefs may injure corals, which in…

Young swift parrots (Lathamus discolour). Photo courtesy of Dejan Stojanovic. In the forests of Tasmania lives the swift parrot (Lathamus discolour), a highly threatened bird that breeds nowhere else in…

Renowned biologist E.O Wilson, assessing Earth's sixth great extinction now underway, described the future as a shrinking keyhole through which all species must pass as humanity responds to, and hopefully…

Young lion in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last month, Australia became the world's first country to ban the import or export of lion…

The male ruby seadragon (Phyllopteryx dewysea) that was collected in 2007. Photo by: Western Australian Museum. For 150 years, scientists have known of just two so-called seadragons: the leafy seadragon…

Manu National Park in the Peruvian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last year, more than 6,000 people gathered for the World Parks Congress 2014, an event held around every…

Mongabay.org offers journalists opportunity to report on government muzzling of environmental activists Mongabay.org recently announced a new Special Reporting Opportunity for journalists to focus on governmental shutdown of environmental groups…

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is suddenly looking very lively after two announcements over the weekend. The U.S. has announced an initial pledge of $3 billion to the fund, while…

On the eve of the World Parks Congress in Sydney, the Australian government has just hosted the 'Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit', a two-day event that brought together political leaders, academics, environmental…

Ariel view of the Great Barrier Reff. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A consortium of companies—North Queensland Bulk Ports, GVK Hancock and Adani Group—have announced they are giving up on…

Scientists say both rich and developing countries must recognize primary forests as a conservation priority. Primary rainforest in Imbak Canyon in the state of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. The forest is…

Fan palms in the Daintree rainforest in Far North Queensland. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Last week, the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), the world's largest organization devoted…

Introduction of non-native species, de-extinction may work better than traditional conservation practices Today, in the midst of what has been termed the “Sixth Great Extinction” by many in the scientific…

This nadir true-color image was acquired by the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) instrument on August 26, 2000, and shows part of the southern portion of the reef adjacent to the…

Australia's native mammals have fared poorly since the arrival of Europeans. On Tuesday a prominent group of conservation scientists condemned the Australian government's recent moves to eliminate protections for native…

In a significant victory for Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the Australian Senate has voted to repeal the country's two-year-old carbon tax. Abbott made dismantling the tax one of the cornerstones…

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee today unanimously rejected a controversial proposal by the Australian government to strip 74,000 hectares of temperate rainforest from a World Heritage Site in Tasmania. In…

Industrial rainforest logging is often posited as a benign activity by groups funded by the logging industry. Australia is seeing a rise in groups that purport to champion environmental causes…

Animals that live in hot climates have various behavioral adaptations to help keep them cool. Kangaroos lick their wrists; rats lick their testicles. New-world vultures urinate on themselves. Humans and…

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has roundly criticized Australia's proposal to remove 74,000 hectares of temperate rainforest from the World Heritage Committee. In a report to the…

The Cape Melville leaf-tailed gecko (Saltuarius eximius) is one of the top ten new species from 2013. Photo by: Conrad Hoskin. Out of around 18,000 new species described and named…

In a cave in Australia, researchers from the University of New South Wales discovered giant fossilized sperm. The sperm were produced 17 million years ago by a group of tiny,…

In the waters off the coast of northern Australia lives a species of feathery coral. Years ago, bits of it were collected by the Australian Institute of Marine Science and…

Yesterday, nearly 2,000 people held a rally to show support for a Tasmanian forest that the Australian government wants stripped of its UNESCO World Heritage Sites and logged. The government,…

What do you do when a company is repeatedly caught trashing the environment and refuses to change its ways? Boycott! Activists and campaigners often use boycotting a company's products when…

Japan has harvested thousands of whales in North Pacific and Antarctic waters since the implementation of a global ban on whaling, eliciting harsh criticism from the international community. Now, in…

A group of prominent scientists have blasted Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s pledge to oppose the creation of any new protected areas in Australia. The Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers…

Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Corey Bradshaw Primary peat forest in Sumatra. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Much of Dr. Corey Bradshaw's work has a singular aim: to…

Last year, after decades of fighting, environmentalists and the forestry industry reached a landmark agreement that added 170,000 hectares of old-growth forest in Tasmania as a part of a World…

Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with William F. Laurance Logging road in Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. In the world of conservation, Dr. William Laurance is a household…