Australia is the planet’s extinction hotspot, but one animal offers a glimmer of hope
8 hours ago
Getty Images/Sharon Jones/BBC
“Eyes peeled,” comes the order from the front passenger seat
Obediently, we scan the ends and tops of logs, looking between low scrub and patches of vivid wildflowers for a flash of stripes or a dart of movement
Eluding us is the numbat, a rare Australian marsupial which could be the love-child of a chipmunk and an anteater
Numbats were once populous across the bottom half of the continent, but Dryandra Woodland – in the south-western corner of Australia – is one of the few places they remain
As we slowly roll along bush tracks, researchers explain how this annual trip helps plot the species’ survival
Classified as endangered until this month, numbats have been bouncing back. This team’s efforts have seen them scratched off the international red list of threatened species – a rare glimmer of hope in a country facing an extinction emergency
This part of Australia is the front line of that crisis: a last stand for many species driven to the brink by feral pests, disease, urban development, habitat destruction and climate change
Winging over our car at one point is the endangered Carnaby’s cockatoo. On an island just off the coast is one of the last surviving pockets of the world’s rarest marsupial, the Gilbert’s potoroo. Diving in the sapphire waters around it is the increasingly scarce Australian sea lion
Sharon Jones/BBC
Australia has long been celebrated as a nature haven, home to some of the world’s most unique plant and animal species. More than 80% cannot be found anywhere else
But it has arguably become the extinction capital of the world, losing roughly four species every decade – and the decline is only worsening
Dedicated volunteers and under-funded conservationists have been slowing the army of increasing threats, but experts fear that without urgent action and political courage, the biodiversity Australia says it loves is headed for a bloodbath
“It’s not even a case of imagining it, it’s happening in front of our own eyes,” Professor Euan Ritchie tells the BBC
The many threats driving extinction
Sharon Jones/BBC
If spotting a rare creature in the wild wasn’t challenging enough, the numbat is a squirrel-sized camouflage connoisseur, explains Dr Tony Friend, the godfather of conservation in the state of Western Australia
“They just slept in today,” jokes Rob McLean, president of the Numbat Taskforce, a volunteer group which makes a lot of Tony’s thinly-re
For two weeks each spring, as the young start venturing from their burrows, this team drives a daily circuit and records every numbat spotted. They log GPS coordinates, measure the distance to the road, and use a complicated equation to estimate the density of the animals in these woods and, from that, broader population health
One person sits in concentrated silence at each window, another perched in the back of the pick-up truck, ducking for the occasional limb branching from trees which rise around us
Through the trunks, we get the occasional glimpse of the razed farmland which tightly fences this pocket of protected woodland. On the side of one trail is a machine which detects and sprays feral cats and foxes with poison, another reminder of the perils numbats face
“This year’s been a bit of a feast,” Rob admits
For hours on end, we cruise around, seeing parrots, wallabies, a goanna and a couple of echidnas – but no numbats
Tony arrived at Dryandra back in the 80s to find a numbat population fewer than 50. Many of the culprits then were the same as those still driving extinctions across the nation today
Courtesy WA DBCA
Swathes of critical habitat are being cleared for development or industries like farming, mining and timber
Leaving a trail of destruction in their wake are introduced pests: fire ants, cane toads, rabbits, foxes, feral cats
Invasive weeds like lantana are choking the Australian bush, chlamydia has sent koalas to the edge of existence across much of the country, while the skin-eating chytrid fungus has caused seven frog extinctions here and counting
The changing climate is creating unliveable conditions for some species, like native flying foxes which are dropping out of trees in their thousands due to extreme temperatures
For others it is eliminating their food or their homes
Climate change is also driving natural disasters which fry and drown both plants and animals with now frightening regularity
The infamous Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20, for example, killed an estimated three billion animals. The successive years of record-breaking flooding which followed were so widespread it’s impossible to estimate the impact on wildlife
Sharon Jones/BBC
Many species once abundant across the continent are now isolated to increasingly small and disjointed patches, each impact compounding and leaving them more vulnerable to the next
There are small, yet determined, efforts to slow the momentum of decline
As a young numbat scoffs his breakfast – custard with “termite sprinkles” – at Perth Zoo, a keeper explains how this stud’s upcoming release at Dryandra will help boost genetic diversity
“When you get that feedback: your babies have got babies, it’s very satisfying,” Vicki Power says
Breeding programmes like this have also made setting up additional populations of an array of threatened species possible
But many cannot survive in the true wild, where large-scale predator control remains an endless battle, and are instead sent to fenced nature reserves, themselves high-maintenance undertakings facing problems like in-breeding and overpopulation
Habitat protection or restoration projects have been ramping up, but they are not keeping pace with destruction, particularly in the most critical areas
Scientists are also trying to fight disease, though that’s an expensive and laborious endeavour, which for most species buys only a little more time. Others are preserving genetic material in case we ever work out how to resurrect species from the dead
A hundred species lost – and counting
Scientists agree that we’re living though the world’s sixth mass extinction event, the first caused by humans. But Australia is at the front of this trend
It leads the world in mammal extinctions, and medals when it comes to the loss of other species classes too
“Despite Australia being one of the wealthiest countries per capita in the world and having more than its fair share of world-leading scientists… we have a truly awful record of conserving species,” Ritchie says
“And things aren’t getting better.”
The Australian government’s official extinctions list sits at 67, but researchers are confident at least 100 plant and animal species have been lost forever
They suspect the true figure is far higher. The country is still discovering species which have already been wiped out
Though the rate of extinction in Australia has stayed stable, at around four per decade, the number of threatened species is still climbing quickly, and the deterioration of many is only gathering speed
This trajectory has some scary flow-on effects, experts warn. Australia’s biodiversity “underpins everything”, ecologist Jack Pascoe says
Think food production, tourism, construction – much of the economy. Potential scientific breakthroughs could be stymied: in medicine, agriculture and even climate change adaptation. And for First Nations Australians, the decline also threatens their culture
“We think of ourselves as custodians of all life on Earth… so there’s a much more personal and social feeling of loss that comes when these things are not doing well or we lose them forever,” Pascoe, a man from the Yuin Aboriginal nation, says
Decades of failures
Though environment protection is a state responsibility, the federal government oversees matters of national importance
Labor took office in 2022, promising no new extinctions under its watch, and it has sought to make nature protection a defining feature of its second term
“It’s well understood that nature is facing many challenges in the world today, both here in Australia, and overseas… we are losing biodiversity at an alarming rate,” Environment Minister Murray Watt told the BBC in a statement
His party has significantly increased Australia’s emissions reduction efforts and massively boosted renewable energy projects. There is some praise for their work on drawing critically endangered mammals back from the brink. And the passage of revamped environment laws last year was heralded as the most significant reform in a generation
The country also has an ambitious goal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030
But there’s limited optimism that this will be a real turning point
The new laws are only the scaffolding of change. The substance of it is still being worked out – in the form of National Environmental Standards (NES) and a federal watchdog to enforce them
And many in the sector say the problem is not so much the regulatory tools available, but rather the political will to use them
Successive governments have failed to adequately protect the environment over the past 30 years, Australia’s longest serving environment minister tells the BBC
That includes his own administration. “We should have done more too,” says Robert Hill, who lead the last major reforms in 1999 under John Howard’s conservative coalition
Courtesy Perth Zoo
Many of the challenges of his era still haunt leaders today
The nation’s wealth has largely been built off the back of its natural reill underpin the economy and help fund government spending on essentials like healthcare and housing
Then there’s the added pressure applied by industry and the competing interests of states – whose stake in regulatory controls blurs the lines of accountability and increases bureaucratic hurdles
These battles leave even the toughest environmental advocates within governments bruised
For example, the Albanese government last year rushed through laws protecting salmon farming after lobbying by Tasmanian state officials, silencing opposition from within and ignoring advice from its own department concerning the impact of the A$1.4bn (£733m; $989m) industry on the survival of the Maugean Skate, an endangered ray
“The axe falls on the environmental outcome if there’s the alternative of an economic one,” Hill says
“Even if [the federal government] does want to act, it’s still got to have the political strength to turn its aspirations into reality.”
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There is also a belief that greater regulation alone will achieve little
Too much conservation work currently relies on philanthropists’ cash and devoted volunteers, those in the sector say, and much more languishes on the to-do list due to a lack of money
The federal government directly spends about A$700m on nature protection, a fraction of the A$33bn – or 1% of GDP – conservationists say it should be. That is an eyebrow-raising figure, people like Paul Elton concede, but one they argue is reasonable
According to his research – which the government disputes – more than A$26bn is still being spent on subsidies for things like mining, intensive agriculture or fuel despite Australia signing global pledges to wind them back
“For every dollar the government is spending on positive biodiversity conservation action, there’s A$26 being spent on subsidies that are causing harm to nature,” he tells the BBC
“That’s a pretty stark imbalance.”
Minister Watt didn’t directly respond to questions about conservationists’ demands, but said: “We remain committed to long-term environmental recovery, in partnership with state and local governments, community and environmental groups.”
Though public sentiment is shifting, there’s scepticism the government will prioritise the environment amid competing demands and compounding crises until voters force them to do so
“The community will say to you, we should spend a lot of money on the environment. And then if you say, ‘Well, what are you prepared to sacrifice to ensure that funding base?’, then they’re no longer interested,” Hill says
In the face of so many challenges and what they see as little progress, advocates admit it’s hard to hang on to hope
“We know what the problems are. We know how to address them. We know when we spend money on the environment, it pays back many times over,” Ritchie, a mammal ecologist, says
“It’s like being a doctor and seeing all these sick people in the community and you know how to fix them, but no one will let you do that.”
Sharon Jones/BBC
Small wins, like the future of the numbat, keep them fighting
There are now around 3,000 nationwide, and in Dryandra numbers have increased ten-fold. The animal has recently been taken off the international endangered species list and is now classified as near-threatened
It takes five hours, but finally synchronised cries of excitement come from the driver’s seat and the back of the pick-up truck. The cause of the commotion stands frozen and alert at the end of a hollowing log
“It’s not a competition,” Rob says. Chuckling, he points at his rival spotter: “But I beat him by a second.”
The dam has broken. Over the next little while we see eight numbats, including two pairs of babies, blinking at us in the dusky light
This year’s full count, Tony later tells me, is one of the best yet
“But I remind people they’re not out of the woods yet,” Tony says
The relief at the numbat’s revival is tempered by worry this will make it harder to access the funding and support needed to cement those gains
The woylie, or brush-tailed bettong, is a cautionary tale. It recovered slightly and was taken off the threatened list only to be added again a decade later, in a worse state
“We can’t walk away,” Tony says, “and say ‘no, they’re fine,’ you know?”
“It’s got to be accepted that continued work is needed to keep that animal on the planet.”
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