Climate change is exacerbating pressures on every Australian ecosystem and Australia now has more foreign plant species than native, according to the highly anticipated State of the Environment Report released today.
The report also found the number of listed threatened species rose 8% since 2016 and more extinctions are expected in the next decades.
The document represents thousands of hours of work over two years by more than 30 experts. It’s a sobering read, but there are some bright spots.
BC says a deal with the West Moberly First Nations over Site C damage shows reconciliation in action. The nations’ Chief disagrees.
In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, tasked with informing Canadians about what happened to Indigenous peoples in residential schools, defined reconciliation as a process of “establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country.”
Standing in a vast clearcut in British Columbia feels strangely dystopian. It’s quiet. There are no leaves to rustle, no bushes for animals to hide behind. The sun beats down and, you soon discover, there are no trees for shade.
Slash piles are your landmarks now — those mountains of branches leftover from logging. Come winter they’ll get burned. Bonfires against the snow, like a scene from Game of Thrones.
The West Moberly First Nations have reached a partial agreement with B.C. Hydro and the provincial and federal governments over a lawsuit that says the massive Site C hydroelectric dam in northeastern B.C. would destroy their territory and violate their rights.
The federal government has signalled it will be winding down British Columbia’s open-net pen salmon aquaculture industry — but conservationists worry the slow rollout could still have disastrous results on wild fish. And some say a several-year-long phase out could spell the extinction of certain Pacific salmon species.
Hundreds of blue, green and grey tents are pitched under the sun’s searing rays in downtown Phoenix, a jumble of flimsy canvas and plastic along dusty sidewalks. Here, in the hottest big city in America, thousands of homeless people swelter as the summer’s triple digit temperatures arrive.
The chickens, cattle, goats — livestock that provides sustenance for people — starve, drown or perish from disease.
Next, the babies.
Children under five are most vulnerable to malnourishment, dehydration and illness. Their deaths are a bellwether of the devastation brought by famine, drought, flood and disaster.
