Recommended sites

United Nations Environment Program: “Currently, governments spend US$1 per person a year on nature reserves. At least US$50 per person is needed each year to save endangered species. Once a species is lost it is gone forever.”

World Conservation Union (IUCN): “Loss of biodiversity – the variety of animals, plants, their habitats and their genes – on which so much of human life depends, is one of the world’s most pressing crises. It is estimated that the current species extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it would naturally be. ”

World Conservation Union Red List: “The Union’s 2006 Red List of Threatened Species identifies 639 Australian species as threatened with extinction, with 65 listed as critically endangered.”

Australian Government Department of the Environment and Heritage: “Australia is home to more than one million species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world. About 85 per cent of flowering plants, 84 per cent of mammals, more than 45 per cent of birds, and 89 per cent of inshore, temperate–zone fish are endemic – that is they are only found in Australia.”

Nova: Science in the News: “There are two main threats to the continuation of species in Australia, and these threats have already caused extinctions. They are:

• loss of habitat – this may result from climate change, activities of humans or natural events
• the introduction of alien species which prey on and compete with native species for food and habitat

However, not all species under threat of extinction are being protected, nor is there sufficient funding to do so. Deciding how to allocate funds for threatened species programs is a difficult problem.”

Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania: “We have over 600 species currently listed in the schedules of Tasmania’s Threatened Species Protection Act 1995. Many more species are in danger of becoming included on these lists... Today there are 20 recovery teams in operation on Tasmanian species (both plants and animals).”

World Wildlife Fund (Australia) : “The biggest threat to wildlife is from the habitat loss and degradation caused by humanity’s expanding footprint. The greatest single impact in sheer area comes from clearing forests and woodlands for agriculture, primarily for the creation of pastures for livestock. Even apparently natural ecosystems are significantly degraded without being directly destroyed due to the diversion and pollution of water, and the disturbances that logging, grazing and fishing cause to natural food chains.”

The Wilderness Society: “Our wildlife is facing an extinction crisis as a result of human activity – and climate change is only going to make it more difficult for them to adapt and survive.” 

Links

School Groups

Get your school involved!

• Memorial: The Silence of Extinction
• National Threatened Species Day or Hands on for Habitat
• World Environment Day
• The Environment Challenge
• The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development