Australia

“In 2022, widespread recovery has led to the highest coral cover recorded by the Long-Term Monitoring Program (LTMP) in the Northern and Central Great Barrier Reef (GBR), largely due to increases in the fast-growing Acropora corals, which are the dominant group of corals on the GBR and have been largely responsible previous changes in hard coral cover. Above-average water temperatures led to a mass coral bleaching event over the austral summer of 2021/22, the fourth event since 2016 and the first recorded during a La Niña year. . . In periods free from intense acute disturbances, most GBR coral reefs demonstrate resilience through the ability to begin recovery. However, the reefs of the GBR continue to be exposed to cumulative stressors. The prognosis for the future disturbance regime suggests increasing and longer-lasting marine heatwaves, as well as the ongoing risk of outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish and tropical cyclones." 

“The United Nations recently declared that access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a universal human right . . . While most countries have already recognized the right to a healthy environment under law, Australia is one of the last 37 holdouts . . . Australia's record on environmental and human rights protection is already the subject of global scrutiny, thanks to the UN human rights committee's recent finding that Australia failed to protect Torres Strait Islanders against the impacts of climate change and violated their human rights. With the UN now backing the right to a healthy environment, it will be much harder for the government to justify excluding it . . .”

The Northern Territory government is investigating ways to clean up an old copper mine, described as ‘one of Australia's most polluting sites’ . . . ‘[Surrounding waterways have] really high concentrations of copper — you're talking about 300 milligrams per litre, and similar concentrations of things like aluminium — whereas normally, for an aquatic ecosystem we aim for values of 0.001 milligrams per litre.’

- Associate professor Gavin Mudd, an environmental engineering expert from RMIT University

When livestock produces manure and it mixes with urine, it releases ammonia, a nitrogen compound. If it gets into the waterways, it can damage sensitive habitats and cause algae blooms. There are similar problems in Australia where fertilizer run-off from farms can leach into rivers, triggering massive fish kills on the inland rivers or environmental problems, as seen in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef.

“The Bimblebox Alliance is taking this action to defend the Bimblebox Nature Refuge. The idea that a coal mining exploration permit can be given out over a nature refuge is unthinkable. It throws into question the entire nature refuge program and the legal agreements that underpin it.”

- Sharyn Munro, spokesperson for The Bimblebox Alliance

"The Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan is the Australian and Queensland Government’s overarching framework for protecting and managing the Great Barrier Reef to 2050 . . . Since the Plan was released in 2015, the Reef has been deeply impacted by three mass coral bleaching events and a severe Tropical Cyclone . . . In light of these events the Great Barrier Reef Ministerial Forum brought forward the scheduled mid-term review of the Plan to ensure it addresses current pressures and remains effective . . . A final updated Plan is expected to be released in early 2021."

"In the wake of last year’s devastating bushfires in Australia, which killed at least 33 people and three billion animals, from koalas to frogs, and torched an area twice the size of Pennsylvania, the country is still just beginning to wrestle with a future that promises ever bigger and more severe fires . . . unique landscapes across the continent remain at risk for transformation and conflagration, as climate change, flawed land management, and other environmental threats increasingly collide with fire . . . Fire is a natural part of Fraser’s landscape, but in recent years the austral winter dry season has extended later into spring and also been warmed by climate change . . . “In the old days,” he says, “that sort of fire could easily have happened, but the likelihood is that it would have petered out after a day or two.” Instead, this one crisped more than 200,000 acres and burned for two months straight."

"Australia's Great Barrier Reef has experienced its most widespread bleaching event on record, with the south of the reef bleaching extensively for the first time . . . This marks the third mass bleaching event on the reef in just the last five years and scientists say that the rapid warming of the planet due to human emissions of heat-trapping gases are to blame . . . The bleaching event this year is not only the largest, in terms of the area affected, but also second most severe on record."

“Growing up to 40 metres from the ocean floor, the [giant kelp] forests protected a vibrant ecosystem of sponge garden, fur seals, crayfish, weedy sea dragons and countless fish species. . . The sea along the Tasmanian east coast is a global heating hotspot. Temperatures there have risen at nearly four times the global average. . . Warm water pushed down the coast by the east Australian current has stripped the area of nutrients, brought new marine species, and killed more than 95% of the giant kelp. The impact on local ecosystems and fisheries has been severe. . . “It’s one of the worst, if not the worst, place in the world for kelp forest loss,” Cayne Layton says. “The composition of the ocean community has nearly completely changed.”

"Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of lithium. In 2020, 46% of the world’s lithium came from Australia and exports of lithium are expected to continue to increase, forecasted to contribute $9.4 billion in revenue to the Australian economy by 2023-24."

"The catastrophic fires raging across the southern half of the continent are largely the result of rising temperatures . . . Of course, unusually hot summers have happened in the past; so have bad bushfire seasons. But the link between the current extremes and anthropogenic climate change is scientifically undisputable . . . The fires raging across the southern half of the Australian continent this year have so far burned through more than 5 million hectares. To put that in context, the catastrophic 2018 fire season in California saw nearly 740,000 hectares burned."

Raging bushfires in Australia may have wiped out 30 percent of the nation’s koalas, the federal environment minister said this week . . . The Mid North Coast region of New South Wales, where about 28,000 of the country’s 80,000 koalas live, has been hit particularly hard by the fires, which began about two months ago after a historically severe drought.

“Western Australia is one of many areas around the globe where [chronic kidney disease] has become a serious public health problem . . . Focusing on remote Aboriginal communities . . . Most remote communities rely on raw groundwater to supply domestic water, often without treatment. In these cases, it is extremely likely that the communities are unwittingly ingesting high levels of nitrates and uranium including a probability of the presence of uranyl nitrates. Very few remote communities in Western Australia have access to treated drinking water, and cost effective water treatment systems are required to provide potable water at the local scale.”

“The listing [has] three main benefits — recognition of Gunditjmara achievements on a global scale, increased protection for the site, and the potential tourism boost . . . [Dennis] Rose said he was delighted to think something the Indigenous people of south-west Victoria built now appeared on the same list as the pyramids, Stonehenge and the Acropolis. ‘When I take people out to country I tell them this aquaculture system was first built 6,600 years ago — there's not many things on the planet that still exist today that are older than that.’

- Denis Rose, project manager for Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation