Environment & Biodiversity

Louise Morris

Budgets are not communications exercises. They are statements of priorities, the most literal answer a government can give to the question: what do we value? Ask that of the 2026–27 federal budget, and the answer, for nature, for Australia's irreplaceable native species, for the ecosystems that took millions of years to evolve on this continent and exist nowhere else on Earth, is clear. Nature is not a priority.

Leanne Minshull

Direct funding for environmental protection in this year’s budget is just 0.3% of total budget expenses. Alarmingly, it then falls off dramatically over the forward estimates. Such low levels of direct investment in the environment used to be a feature of Coalition rather than Labor governments.

Euan Ritchie

Sir David Attenborough turns 100 this week. Very few people have the good fortune to live for a century. Fewer still achieve so much and touch so many lives. He gave the now legendary comedy troupe Monty Python their lucky break, greenlighting their Flying Circus. His keen eye and care for viewers is in part why tennis balls are yellow, not white – they’re much easier to see on screen. But Attenborough is, of course, most famous for his nature documentaries.

Gemma Tillack

There is nothing like a trek in the jungle. Rock hopping up a wild river and losing time amidst the glow of a lush green canopy. Australia is blessed with some of the world’s oldest tropical rainforests, and lucky for us, they are protected in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.

Louise Morris

A growing body of scientific research shows seismic blasting seriously harms marine ecosystems from the smallest plankton to the largest whales. Yet, seismic blasting remains routine because it sits at the beginning of the fossil fuel extraction process.

David Lindenmayer

The native forest logging industry has stopped in Victoria and Western Australia. Right? Wrong. The industry persists – but in ways that continue to damage forests and, in some cases, increase their susceptibility to future fires.