Image: Jo Anne Mcarthur
The long-awaited 2021 State of the Environment Report adds political pressure on the Australian government for environmental conservation. The five-year environmental report says the Australian land and exotic wildlife are facing deterioration due to relentless climate change, resource extraction, and other causes. Australia’s unique wildlife is also at risk of bushfires, global warming, and habitat loss. All this is likely to push more species into extinction if stringent measures are not taken.
After the report, was released in December last year, the previous conservative government decided not to make it public before the elections. Now, the center-left Labor Party has won on pledges that include positive action on climate change. It aims to reduce 43 percent of emissions by the end of the decade. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said that this report has sent a very strong message about things we need to improve and cut down carbon emissions.
Image: Tracey Nearmy/Reuters
Tanya expressed that she would enforce new environmental protection laws in Parliament in the coming year. Even the government would form an agency to enforce all those environmental laws. The government even plans to set a target of declaring around 30 percent of Australia’s land and surrounding sea as protected areas. They also plan to form an east Antarctic marine park.
The minister seemed optimistic about all these measures that she aims to take over the next three years. The wide-ranging report even listed various Australian species as 8 percent more threatened since the 2016 report. The threatened species’ numbers have increased substantially after the 2019 and 2020 wildfires destroyed the major tracts of southeast Australian forests.
Image: Jono Searle/EPA
According to Kelly O’Shanassy, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation (an environmental organization), land clearing was the big cause of habitat loss in the country. It is the fourth State of the Environment Report exhibiting how the environment is getting worse day by day. After all, no strict action has been taken, so far.
But with the government’s commitment to law reformation, we hope there would be some rapid climate action. Otherwise, the endangered species inhabiting the island continent will soon go extinct.
Via: The Guardian