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https://theconversation.com/threatened-species-have-declined-2-a-year-since-2000-nature-positive-far-from-it-230116>
"Our government has great aspirations. It has committed to end extinctions and
expand our protected areas to cover 30% of every Australian ecosystem by 2030.
This is part of its Nature Positive Plan, aligned with the 2022
Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity pact. The goal is not just to conserve
nature but to restore what is being lost.
But how can these goals be reconciled with a budget that allocated more public
money to carbon capture and storage than biodiversity?
This week’s federal budget was a new low point for investment in nature.
Environmental groups roundly criticised the “bad budget for nature”, which
delivered next-to-no money to protect and recover Australia’s unique and
threatened biodiversity.
Research has shown Australians want at least 2% of the federal budget spent on
nature. Instead, less than 0.1% of the budget spend will support biodiversity
in some way. Over the past decade, biodiversity funding has gone down 25%
relative to GDP.
Let’s say the government decided it was finally time to roll up the sleeves and
do something. How would they go about it? What would it take to actually
reverse the decline, as the government says it wants to in its Nature Positive
approach?
Our threatened species populations have been declining by about 2-3% a year
over the past 20 years. The first step is to stop the fall. Then the challenge
is to restore dwindling species and ecosystems."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
