Australia Drops a Bombshell: An Environment Report Card That Nobody Should Ignore

The Australian government releases a report on the state of the environment every five years.

In the past five years, severe coral bleaching events have whitened a third of the Great Barrier Reef, floods devastated the tropical north, and catastrophic fires burned over 6 million acres of land.

Critics accused the government of sitting on the report to avoid bad publicity before the elections.

With a change in government, the findings of the report will be made public, and it's just as bad as people feared.

Climate change, habitat loss, and pollution have pushed Australia's environment into a serious and severely deteriorated state.

According to the report's key findings, Australia does not have a framework that deliversholistic environmental management.

The scale of the challenge continues to grow.

The Environment Minister said that Australians deserved the truth.

The last five years have seen a 20 percent increase in the number of threatened communities.

Australia's coastal shores and waters are in poor condition and the land is worse off. Ten of the 18 ecosystems deemed to be at risk of collapse are on the ground.

Almost half of the nation's forests and woodlands have been cleared.

A lot of vegetation has been lost.

Australian fauna is suffering due to this. Most of the 7.7 million hectares of potential habitat for threatened species was cleared without scrutiny.

Australia has the highest rate of species decline in the world and has already lost more mammal species than any other country.

The northern hopping-mouse, the rock-rat, the Christmas Island flying fox, and the black-footed tree-rat are all predicted to go extinct in the next two decades.

There are other species that we aren't counting. About 70% of Australian plant and animal species have yet to be described by scientists, according to some experts.

That is the reason Indigenous knowledge is so valuable. For tens of thousands of years, people living in Australia have a deep understanding of native flora and fauna.

For the first time, the State of Environment Report gives Australia's Indigenous people a voice in the nation's environment.

Brendan Wintle, who was not involved in the recent environmental report, told The New York Times that the findings were very much a precursor to an extinction crisis in Australia.

Many Australians are calling for that. Voters came out in historic numbers toelect politicians with stronger climate agendas in May of 2022.

In a nation battered by climate disaster after climate disaster, squirreling away an environmental report cannot hide the dire reality.

The State of the Environment report is available here.