A scorching summer has left Australian wildlife on the brink, but it doesn’t have to be this way |
Soaring, scorching, record temperatures, yet again. Distressing, protracted droughts. Raging fires and devastating floods. Australia’s summer is drawing to a close, and a reprieve from climate whiplash can’t come soon enough.
We’ve witnessed and suffered immense losses and deep heartache for wildlife, ecosystems, and our communities. There was a time when the dire potential consequences of climate change and environmental destruction were warnings, calls from scientists and experts for increased and urgent action. Now an unsettling possibility feels like a disturbing reality.
The decisions of our political leaders, who continue to approve fossil fuel project expansions and widespread land clearing and habitat destruction, are coming home to roost in ever more predictable, catastrophic and emotionally confronting ways. A series of recent events spanning the southern part of the continent provide a stark and sobering illustration.
In Western Australia’s Fitzgerald River national park, over 170,000 hectares have burnt, impacting habitats of multiple threatened species including the dibbler – a diminutive native marsupial – and the western bristlebird. Fire also encompassed key breeding areas for Carnaby’s cockatoo.
Reassuringly, we know some chicks survived, but the full toll of this fire and........