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Australia has some of the world’s last great wilderness areas, with nearly a billion acres remaining largely unaltered by the expansion of industrial civilization. Around that core of wild lands, hundreds of millions more acres are healthy enough that they can still support the maintenance of resilient ecosystems.
In addition to its terrestrial treasures, Australia has some of the world’s most intact marine areas. Its tropical waters include the Great Barrier Reef, one of the world’s iconic marine systems. In addition, its southern temperate waters are highly biodiverse, with many species restricted to those seas. Australian marine areas include productive and diverse areas in both tropical and temperate seas that remain relatively undisturbed.
Australia’s wilderness harbors an astonishing and exotic array of plant and animal species, many of which are endemic, existing only in that one place in the world. Indeed, Australia ranks first among all nations in total number of uniquely native mammal and reptile species, and among the top five countries in total numbers of endemic plants, birds and amphibians.
Although there are several ambitious biodiversity or wilderness conservation efforts underway in Australia, not nearly enough is being done. Pew has developed and supported the Australia program, which will be an ambitious, three-year effort to identify and protect large wilderness and marine areas of outstanding biodiversity significance in Australia.
Photo: Copyright 2008, John O’Neill Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this photo under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is available here: (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GNU_Free_Documentation_License)
Jan 29, 2013 - The Premier of Western Australian has announced the world famous Horizontal Falls and extraordinary reefs, bays, and surrounding areas of the Kimberley region will be permanently protected.
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Nov 11, 2010 - The Ecology Centre of The University of Queensland has conducted an independent analysis of marine sanctuaries for the Commonwealth‘s South West Marine Region.
Jul 13, 2010 - An assessment of carbon storage, sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions in remote Australia.
Read: Summary View: Full Report (Adobe PDF)
Feb 23, 2009 - Save Our Marine Life has just launched a groundbreaking new report into the wonders off our continent's west coast.
Aug 27, 2008 - Australia has one of the worst records of extinctions, particularly of mammals and vascular plants, and many species are threatened, including about 20% of mammals. The extinction process is ongoing, including in areas with high wilderness qualities.
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