The number of endangered species in Australia has increased by eight percent in the past five years. In addition, the pressure on all ecosystems in the country is increasing due to climate change. These are some of the dramatic findings of the State of the Environment Report 2021 in Australia.
The inventory, which is carried out every five years, was published on Tuesday by the Ministry of the Environment in Canberra. Commentators and the media Down Under described the results as “shocking” and spoke of “catastrophic loss of wildlife and habitat”.
More than 30 experts spent two years collecting data on Australia’s environment – from rivers and oceans to air and ice, rural and urban areas.
Since the colonization in 1788, 39 species of mammals have become extinct on the red continent – more than on any other continent. At the same time, 80 percent of the country’s nearly 400 mammal species live only in Australia, including koalas, wombats and the egg-laying platypus.
Since the publication of the last report in 2016, 17 species of mammals, 17 species of birds and 19 species of frogs have been included in the list of threatened species or have now been classified as “critically endangered”, it said. Overall, the number of endangered animal and plant species has increased from 1774 to 1918 in the past five years.
One of the main reasons is the loss of natural habitat. According to the report, around 7.7 million hectares of land were cleared between 2000 and 2017. But the devastating bushfires of 2019/20 also hit the wildlife hard.
Source: Nachrichten
