Environmental issues in Australia

Climate change is now a major political talking point in Australia in the last two decades. Persistent drought, and resulting water restrictions during the first decade of the twenty-first century, are an example of natural events' tangible effect on economic and political realities .^[1][2][3]

Australia ranks within the top ten countries globally with respect to greenhouse gas emissions per capita.^[4]

The current federal and state governments have all publicly stated their belief that climate change is being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Vocal minority groups within the population campaign against mining and coal-fired power stations in Australia, and such demonstrations are widely reported by the mainstream media.^[5] Similarly, vocal minority groups concurrently oppose wind energy schemes, despite being 'carbon neutral', on the grounds of local visual and noise impact and concern for the currently high cost and low reliability of wind energy.^[6][7][8]

Despite the publication of the Garnaut report and the Green Paper on the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, public belief in anthropogenic climate change has noticeably eroded following the leaking of e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit.^[9][10]

There is claimed to be a net benefit to Australia in stabilising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at 450ppm CO₂ eq^[11] in line with the prevailing political stance. Public disagreement with this opinion is generally dismissed as expression of vested interests, for example from the coal industry.

Energy use

Most of Australia's demand for electricity depends upon coal-fired thermal generation,^[12] owing to the plentiful indigenous coal supply, limited potential electric generation and political unwillingness to exploit indigenous uranium resources (although Australia accounted for the world's second highest production of uranium in 2005^[13] to fuel a 'carbon neutral' domestic nuclear energy program.^[14]

Australia does not require its vehicles to meet any fuel efficiency standards, in spite of its emissions reduction target under the Paris Agreement.^[15]

Conservation in Australia is an issue of state and federal policy. Australia is one of the most biologically diverse countries in the world, with a large portion of species endemic to Australia. Preserving this wealth of biodiversity is important for future generations.

A key conservation issue is the preservation of biodiversity, especially by protecting the remaining rainforests. The destruction of habitat by human activities, including land clearing, remains the major cause of biodiversity loss in Australia. The importance of the Australian rainforests to the conservation movement is very high.^[16] Australia is the only western country to have large areas of rainforest intact. Forests provide timber, drugs, and food and should be managed to maximise the possible uses. Currently, there are a number of environmental movements and campaigners advocating for action on saving the environment, one such campaign is the Big Switch.

Land management issues including clearance of native vegetation, reafforestation of once-cleared areas, control of exotic weeds and pests, expansion of dryland salinity, and changed fire regimes. Intensification of resource use in sectors such as forestry, fisheries, and agriculture are widely reported to contribute to biodiversity loss in Australia. Coastal and marine environments also have reduced biodiversity from reduced water quality caused by pollution and sediments arising from human settlements and agriculture. In central New South Wales where there are large plains of grassland, problems have risen from—unusual to say—lack of land clearing.

The Daintree Rainforest, a tropical rainforest near Daintree, Queensland covering around 1200 square kilometres, is threatened by logging, development, mining and the effects of the high tourist numbers.

There are some government programs in Australia which are the opposite of conservation (such as killing wildlife); an example of this is shark culling, which currently occurs in New South Wales and Queensland.^[17][18]

Native fauna

Over a hundred species of fauna are currently under serious threat of extinction. The plight of some of these species receives more attention than others and recently the focus of many conservation organisations has been the critically endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat, the endangered Tasmanian devil,^[19] northern tiger quoll, south eastern red-tailed black cockatoo, southern cassowary, Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, Leadbeater's possum and southern corroboree frog.

Australia has a poor record of conservation of native fauna. The extinction of Australian megafauna is attributed to the arrival of humans and since European settlement, 23 birds, 4 frogs, and 27 mammal species are also known to have become extinct.

Marine conservation

One of the notable issues with marine conservation in Australia is the protection of the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef's environmental pressures include water quality from runoff, climate change and mass coral bleaching, cyclic outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish, overfishing, and shipping accidents. The government of Queensland currently kills sharks in the Great Barrier Reef using drum lines, causing damage to the marine ecosystem.^[20]

In 2021 Australia announced the creation of 2 national marine parks in size of 740,000 square kilometres. With those parks 45% of the Australian marine territory will be protected.^[21]

Whaling

Whaling in Australia took place from colonisation in 1788. In 1979 Australia terminated whaling and committed to whale protection. The main varieties hunted were humpback, blue, right and sperm whales.^[22]

Shark culling

Western Australia culled sharks in 2014, killing dozens of tiger sharks and causing public protest.^[23] Later that year it was abandoned, and the government of Western Australia continued to shoot and kill sharks it believed to be an "imminent threat" to humans from 2014 to 2017;^[24][25] this policy was criticised by senator Rachel Siewart for being environmentally damaging.^[26]

From 1962 to the present, the government of Queensland has killed sharks on drum lines and shark nets, a process that also kills other animals such as dolphins^[27] and dugongs.^[28] From 1962 to 2018, Queensland's "shark control" program killed roughly 50,000 sharks, including sharks in the Great Barrier Reef.^[17][20] Queensland's shark-killing program has been called "outdated, cruel and ineffective".^[20]

New South Wales has a shark net program that kills sharks as well as other marine life.^[29] Between 1950 and 2008, 352 tiger sharks and 577 great white sharks were killed in the nets in New South Wales – also during this period, a total of 15,135 marine animals were killed in the nets, including whales and turtles.^[18] There has been a very large decrease in the number of sharks in eastern Australia in recent years, and the shark-killing programs in Queensland and New South Wales are partly responsible for this decrease.^[17]

Jessica Morris of Humane Society International calls shark culling a "knee-jerk reaction" and says, "sharks are top order predators that play an important role in the functioning of marine ecosystems. We need them for healthy oceans."^[30]

Oil spills

While there have been no oil spill environmental disasters of the scale of the Exxon Valdez in the country, Australia has a large oil industry and there have been several large oil spills [1]. Spills remain a serious threat to the marine environment and Australian coastline. The largest spill to date was the Kirki tanker in 1991 which dropped 17,280 tonnes of oil off the coast of Western Australia.

In March 2009, the 2009 southeast Queensland oil spill occurred, where 200,000 litres were spilled from the MV Pacific Adventurer spilling more than 250 tonnes of oil, 30 tonnes of fuel and other toxic chemicals on Brisbane's suburban beaches. Premier Anna Bligh described the spill as "worst environmental disaster Queensland has ever seen".^[31]

Ocean dumping

A serious issue to the Australian marine environment is the dumping of rubbish from ships. There have been a number of cases,^[32] particularly involving the navy of Australian and other countries polluting Australian waters including the dumping of chemical warfare agents. Recently documented cases include the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in 2006 which was found to be dumping rubbish off the shores of Moreton Island.^[33] In Victoria, a large number of toxic drums containing 1,2-Dichlorobenzene xylenol, a substance very toxic to aquatic creatures washed up on beaches during May 2009 presumably fallen off a passing container ship.^[34]

Invasive species

Australia's geographical isolation has resulted in the evolution of many delicate ecological relationships that are sensitive to foreign invaders and in many instances provided no natural predators for many of the species subsequently introduced.^{[citation needed]} The introduction and prolific breeding of animal species such as the cane toad (Rhinella marina) and rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) had greatly disrupted native species populations.^[35][36] Introduced species in Australia are problematic in that they may outcompete or, in the case of the can toad, red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and feral domestic cats (Felis catus), directly kill native species. Rabbits in Australia along with feral beasts of burden disrupt native species by destroying vulnerable habitat requiring drastic pest-exclusion measures such as the Rabbit-proof fence.^[37] The cane toad invasion is particularly concerning due to them having few predators and apart from extensively outcompeting native species^[38] their toxicity kills thousands of native apex predators each year.^[39] The threat of the ongoing cane toad invasion has seen the establishment of a national taskforce despite its potential range being limited to the north of the continent.^[40] Likewise Tasmania takes the threat of the species so seriously that it has a government sponsored taskforce to prevent fox populations from taking hold on the island.^[41] The species has single-handedly caused the extinction of several native species on the mainland.^[42]

Australia is also vulnerable to invasive weeds. Controlling the invasion of prickly pears in Australia is one of the success stories of invasive species control. The government maintains a Weeds of National Significance (WONS) list of problematic plant species.^[43]

According to Jared Diamond, "Australia's number-one environmental problem [is] land degradation".^[44] Land degradation results from nine types of damaging environmental impacts:^[44]

• Clearance of native vegetation
• Overgrazing by sheep
• Rabbits
• Soil nutrient exhaustion
• Soil erosion
• Man-made droughts
• Weeds
• Misguided governmental policies
• Salinization

Logging and woodchopping

Clearcutting of old growth forests is continuing in parts of Australia. This often involves the destruction of natural ecosystems and the replacement with monoculture plantations.

Australia had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.22/10, ranking it 46th globally out of 172 countries.^[45]

Land clearing

In the prehistory of Australia the Indigenous Australians used fire-stick farming which was an early form of land clearing which caused long term changes to the ecology. With European colonisation land clearing continued on a larger scale for agriculture – particularly for cattle, cotton and wheat production. Since European settlement a total of 13% of native vegetation cover has been lost. The extinction of 20 different mammals, 9 bird and 97 plant species have been partially attributed to land clearing. Land clearing is a major source of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, and contributed to approximately 12 percent of Australia's total emissions in 1998.

The consequences of land clearing include dryland salinity and soil erosion. These are a major concern to the landcare movement in Australia.

The clearing of native vegetation is controlled by Federal laws (indirectly), State law and local planning instruments. The precise details of regulation of vegetation clearing differ according to the location where clearing is proposed.

Soil salinity

Soil salinity affects 50,000 km² of Australia and is predominantly due to land clearance.

The protection of waterways in Australia is a major concern for various reasons including habitat and biodiversity, but also due to use of the waterways by humans.

The Murray-Darling Basin is under threat due to irrigation in Australia, causing high levels of salinity which affect agriculture and biodiversity in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. These rivers are also affected by pesticide run-off and drought. Low oxygen levels in the water combined with high temperatures has led to fish kills in the Darling River in 2018, 2019 and 2023.^[46] The worst was in March 2023 in which millions of dead bony bream, golden perch silver perch and some Murray cod flowed down the river.^[46]

Australian waterways facing environmental issues

Rivers and creeks in urban areas also face environmental issues, particularly pollution.

Victoria

• Port Phillip (contamination – silt; sediment; toxins; household chemicals; garden chemicals; E. coli; litter; flotsam and jetsam)^[47]
• Yarra River (contamination – E. coli; litter – 13 traps; logging; erosion; salinity)^[48][49]
• Maribyrnong River (contamination – arsenic and heavy metals; litter – 1 trap)^[50][51]
• Mullum Mullum Creek (contamination – E. coli; litter)^[52]
• Murray River (salinity, erosion)^[53]

New South Wales

• Parramatta River (contamination – dioxins, arsenic, coal tars, chromium, lead and phthalates)^{[citation needed]}
• Darling River (salinity, erosion)^{[citation needed]}
• Murray River (salinity, erosion)^{[citation needed]}
• Cooks River (pollution, algal blooms)^{[citation needed]}

Queensland

• Bremer River (water grading F – lowest possible)^[54][55][56]
• Brisbane River^[57][58]
• Oxley Creek (water grading D)^[59]
• Bulimba Creek (threatened species due to land degradation; pollution; litter)^[60]

South Australia

• River Torrens (contaminants – E. coli; algal bloom)^[61]

Water use is a major sustainability issue in Australia. Water is becoming a very very big problem for not only Australia but worldwide as where there are droughts occurring more often and only having limited use of the water and then there are even places that don't have any water at all such as India etc., we need conserve our water for the future and get more access to the water since we only have roughly 5% access to it.^[62]

Australia is one of the most urbanised countries in the world. Many Australian cities have large urban footprints and are characterised by an unsustainable low density urban sprawl. This places demand on infrastructure and services which contributes to the problems of land clearing, pollution, transport related emissions, energy consumption, invasive species, automobile dependency and urban heat islands.

The urban sprawl continues to increase at a rapid rate in most Australian cities, particularly the state capital cities, all of which (with the exception of Hobart) are metropoleis. In some centres, such as Sydney and Greater Western Sydney,^[63] Greater Melbourne^[64] and South East Queensland^[65] large metropolitan conurbations threaten to extend for hundreds of kilometres and based on current population growth rates are expected to become megacities in the 21st century. Most Australian cities population growth is a result of migration in contrast to the Birth rate and fertility rate in Australia, which is contributing to the ongoing trend of urbanisation.

In recent years, some cities have implemented transit-oriented development strategies to curb the urban sprawl. Notable examples include Melbourne 2030,^[66] South East Queensland Regional Plan and the Sydney Metropolitan Strategy. There are also population decentralisation programs at state and federal levels aimed at shifting populations out of the major centres and stemming the drivers to rapid urbanisation. Albury-Wodonga was part of the federal government's program of decentralisation begun in the 1970s, which has at times had relocation policies for immigration. The Victorian government has run a decentralisation program since the 1960s, having had a ministerial position appointed and ongoing promotional and investment programs for stimulating growth in Regional Victoria. However policy has swung over the decades, primarily due to local development priorities and agendas and a lack of federal co-ordination to the problem.

Issues include large quantities of e-waste and toxic waste going into landfill. Australia does not have restrictions on the dumping of toxic materials that are common in other countries, such as dumping Cathode Ray Tubes which leach heavy metals into water catchments. Due to the lack of sufficient sites for toxic waste disposal large quantities of toxic waste are trucked between states to remote dumping grounds or exported overseas in ships.^[67]

Australia has the largest reserves of uranium in the world and there has been a number of enquiries on uranium mining. The anti-nuclear movement in Australia actively opposes mining and seeks to prevent the construction of nuclear power plants.^[68]

At least 150 leaks, spills and licence breaches occurred at the Ranger uranium mine between 1981 and 2009.^[69]

The following is a list of development projects that have been controversial due to concerns of environmental effects. This list includes projects required to submit an Environmental Effects Statement.

• Fusion Party
• List of environmental issues
• List of environmental issues in Victoria
• List of threatened flora of Australia
• Litter in Australia
• Odour pollution in Australia
• Recycling in Australia
• Sustainable Australia Party
• Timbarra Gold Mine – a highly controversial gold mine
• World Uranium Hearing

• Australian Environment Portal
• Envirotalk – Australia's largest environmental discussion forum
• Environment Victoria