By Cheryl JonesJune 16, 2010 12:00AM FRANK Fenner doesn’t engage in the skirmishes of the climate wars. To him, the evidence of global warming is in. Our fate is sealed. “We’re going to become extinct,” the eminent scientist says. “Whatever we do now is too late.” Fenner is an authority on extinction. The emeritus professor […]
By Bob BealeMay 4, 2010 (PhysOrg.com) — The slow death of one of Australia’s iconic wetlands is causing dramatic upheavals in its bird populations, with species from surrounding farmland moving in to replace many small woodland birds as they lose their habitat, a new study has found. Their loss is adding to the widespread decline […]
By TOM ARUP AND BEN CUBBYMay 12, 2010 JUST 25 per cent of flood plains in the Murray-Darling Basin were inundated with water during the devastating drought that gripped the nation during the past decade, detailed environment modelling by the CSIRO has found. The long-term effects of the lack of water means that the ecological […]
By BEN CUBBY ENVIRONMENT EDITORMay 12, 2010 SYDNEYSIDERS were told to stay indoors or don masks, and about 25 people were treated for breathing problems as clouds of bushfire smoke unfurled across the city. A rogue breeze drove smoke from hazard reduction burning in the Blue Mountains down to street level yesterday. Westerly winds had […]
By NICKY PHILLIPS AND ERIK JENSENMay 5, 2010 WE HAVE lost the war against our most notorious feral invader. ”The eradication of cane toads is not currently possible,” a federal government report concedes. The admission comes as scientists say a small group of the slimy pests recently discovered in Taren Point in Sydney – originally […]
May 4, 2010 – 4:50PM (AAP) Work has begun on planting more than 1 million native seedlings in the exposed beds of South Australia’s lower lakes. Federal Water Minister Penny Wong and South Australian Environment Minister Paul Caica said the hand planting would vegetate more than 2300 hectares of exposed lake beds across Lake Alexandrina […]
By BEN CUBBY, ENVIRONMENT EDITORMay 4, 2010 THE state’s biggest inland bird-breeding sanctuary is nearing collapse due to lack of water, and the bird population is undergoing ”dramatic upheavals” as some species are pushed out, a new report has found. The Macquarie Marshes – a vast, tangled sprawl of creeks and swamps between Nyngan and […]
By PAUL TATNELLApril 30, 2010 – 4:53PM Sydney has experienced its fifth warmest April on record with a month of balmy nights and little rain. But don’t put away the warm clothes just yet with predictions that winter is on the way; it’s just running a little late. The average April minimum temperature was 1 […]
By Jim Robbins For many years, Diana Six, an entomologist at the University of Montana, planned her field season for the same two to three weeks in July. That’s when her quarry — tiny, black, mountain pine beetles — hatched from the tree they had just killed and swarmed to a new one to start […]
By JESSICA MAHARApril 21, 2010 THE rain dances must have worked, with NSW suffering less drought than at any time in the past nine years – this month, just 7.3 per cent of the state is drought declared. The Primary Industries Minister, Steve Whan, said he hoped the figures marked a turning point for the […]
