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Australia’s beloved animals are again under threat as the H5N1 strain of bird flu spreads, with more mass deaths expected. Scientists are bracing for another wave of ecological loss and are particularly concerned about rare and threatened species.

It’s normal to find this news overwhelming, especially in the wake of a growing list of environmental disasters: from algal blooms to coral bleaching, and floods and fires that devastate wildlife and ecosystems.

We research ecological grief – the deep sadness people feel about the loss of nature – and climate emotions – human feelings in response to the climate crisis. We have listened to hundreds of people talk about their feelings about our environment, and their fears and hopes for its future. Some describe sadness, anger or concern. Others try to avoid bad news.

These responses are rarely simple. They are often rooted in particular places and species we love, and in the memories, identities and relationships attached to them. Because of this, grief can co-exist with feelings like awe, pride, belonging and care.

Here, we share some ways to make space for your feelings and find connection and support.

What is ecological grief?

Grief is an understandable response to witnessing harm to places and species that matter to us. We might experience environmental loss directly, particularly when we live or work in threatened places. At other times, we encounter it through news and social media, or against the wider backdrop of future threats such as climate change. Because ecological loss is ongoing, cumulative, and sometimes ambiguous, we need to practise support, connection and care in ways that we can sustain over time.

Yet our feelings in response to loss are often hard to talk about, especially when they are minimised or dismissed by others. Our society is not very good at “doing grief”. Death is difficult to understand, and can feel like something to be avoided at all costs.

In addition, many of us have lost the rituals and gathering places that enable us to process loss together, such as those offered through spiritual or cultural practices. This can lead to disenfranchised grief, when loss is not acknowledged or validated, leaving people feeling isolated.

Becoming more “grief literate” means developing the knowledge, values and practical skills to understand grief, and support ourselves and others. For environmental loss, this might involve talking with people who are feeling a similar way, spending time in restorative places, or making art, either alone or in groups.

A growing awareness of loss

The good news is communities and professionals are coming together to support people as they grapple with ecological loss. In Australia, organisations like Psychology for a Safe Climate host a network of mental health practitioners who are aware of the realities of climate change and can provide professional support.

Psychology for a Safe Climate also offers regular “climate cafes”, where people can connect with others who share concerns about beloved species and ecosystems.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have learnt to live amid the drastic changes to Country wrought by centuries of colonisation. Their knowledge and practices offer a vital source of wisdom for all, but must be treated with respect and reciprocity if they are offered beyond their own communities. We Al-li shares Indigenous cultural traditions and trauma informed practices through online courses and other training.

Across the world, new groups are forming to support people grappling with ecological grief. US-based not-for-profit Good Grief Network runs peer-to-peer programs delivered by over 180 facilitators globally. Another organisation, Radical Joy, invites people to “make beauty in a wounded place”, either together or alone.

Paying attention to feelings

As we work with people experiencing ecological loss, we are slowly learning to notice and respond to how we are feeling in ourselves. This might include noticing we need to rest, or take a break from news about ecological “doom”.

It might be as simple as going outside and feeling the grass under our feet, or the wind on our face.

For people in environmental professions, Claudia’s team at the University of Queensland have created an ecological grief resource to guide workplaces to provide better support. It encourages compassionate listening with a colleague, which involves listening without judging or offering solutions. It also suggests undertaking a project – like holding a remembrance event or creating something using art – to honour a loss.

With colleagues at Black Dog Institute and the University of Sydney, Chloe developed an activity booklet for young people, families and all those interested in creative tools for exploring climate and environmental feelings. It provides joyful, open-ended prompts for drawing, photography, and writing that can help people of all ages understand their relationship to the natural world.

Making space for grief

Perhaps most importantly, we have learned that paying attention to feelings like ecological grief is not a distraction from responding to pressing environmental challenges.

By making space for grief, you also create opportunities for care, connection and action. This can sustain us all for the long haul, helping us focus on small, achievable changes without losing sight of the bigger picture.

If you are experiencing overwhelming grief or emotional distress, free and confidential support is available anytime in Australia. Call Lifeline at 13 11 14, Griefline at 1300 845 745, or Beyond Blue at 1300 22 4636.

Chloe Watfern, Senior Research Associate, UNSW and Claudia Benham, Senior lecturer, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This year’s cuttlefish season has been unlike any other.

Every winter, more than 100,000 giant Australian cuttlefish can usually be found mating along the rocky coastline of Point Lowly, northeast of Whyalla, South Australia. They put on shapeshifting, colourful displays in their attempts to attract a mate.

This is the only cuttlefish aggregation in the world. In a typical year, thousands of enthusiastic fans travel to regional SA and brave the freezing water temperatures to experience this unique phenomenon.

In stark contrast, this year’s cuttlefish season has seen significantly fewer cuttlefish, and tourists have been kept away.

What makes this cuttlefish aggregation so unique?

Giant Australian cuttlefish are the world’s largest cuttlefish species, and are only found in southern Australia. Cuttlefish are cephalopods, a type of advanced mollusc that also includes octopuses, squids and nautiluses.

Adult giant cuttlefish typically congregate in small groups to mate. But at Point Lowly, one special population forms a single, large mating aggregation along an 8 kilometre stretch of shallow reef. Like most cephalopods, the cuttlefish life cycle lasts about a year. In winter, eggs are laid at the aggregation site, which hatch in spring; juveniles then spend the summer and autumn months growing in deeper waters, before adults return to the aggregation site. Crucially, after mating, all adult cuttlefish die, meaning the next generation is dependent on the mating success of the previous year.

This population of giant Australian cuttlefish is genetically distinct from those found in the rest of the country. The aggregation is considered a rare natural phenomenon and is National Heritage listed.

What happened to the cuttlefish in 2026?

During May and June, tourism operators at Point Lowly reported extremely low cuttlefish numbers, often seeing fewer than ten cuttlefish per dive in areas where one would typically see 100 or more.

In July, significantly reduced cuttlefish numbers were confirmed by the SA government, which regularly surveys the aggregation. While cuttlefish numbers fell to a record low in 2013, there were still thousands of animals – abundant compared with 2026.

What we’ve seen this year is unprecedented. While the timing of the cuttlefish aggregation can vary slightly each year, by late June the animals should be well and truly aggregating. In short, the cuttlefish have simply failed to turn up.

What could be causing this?

While we’ll never know for sure, we can work towards some hypotheses.

On the balance of probabilities, the decline is likely linked to the SA algal bloom in some way. We’re taking into account the extent and rapidity of the cuttlefish decline, relative to past years, and the unprecedented nature of the algal boom’s ecological impact.

The algal bloom was dominated by Karenia cristata microalgae species, which can have a significant and swift impact on cephalopod populations, as seen in Australia and other countries. Cuttlefish could have been directly exposed to the bloom, or it might have reduced their food supply. Cephalopods are obligate carnivores and hunters, meaning they must eat live food such as crabs and shellfish. A decline in prey could have significant impacts.

Another hypothesis is water temperature. It is generally thought winter water temperatures influence the timing and success of the breeding aggregation. However, winter water temperatures have been relatively warm in the past, while a decline in numbers at this scale has not been seen before.

Some aspects of giant cuttlefish biology are still a mystery, so there could be other reasons for the decline that remain unknown.

Can anything be done?

Cephalopods reproduce quickly and grow fast. As such, the giant cuttlefish could bounce back if conditions are good, food is abundant, and there aren’t too many hungry predators around. However, there are still many unknowns that may impede their recovery – more research is needed to understand this unique cuttlefish population.

On a positive note, a 90-day tourism ban imposed by state government gave the remaining cuttlefish the best possible chance to thrive. This move was supported by local tour operators and communities, despite its economic impacts.

Furthermore, Invertebrates Australia is convening a working group of researchers, experts and tourism operators to compile the best available evidence on the status of the giant Australian cuttlefish population at Point Lowly. This will contribute to a review of the population’s conservation status on the world-leading IUCN Red List.

There was media coverage of a “bubble curtain” that was installed to protect the cuttlefish during the algal bloom. It was designed to protect the vulnerable eggs, which are attached to rocks, from the bloom. However, the eggs hatched without issue, and so the bubble curtain was not required.

We’re lucky to have this unique wonder in Australia, and the more research we can do, the more we can do to help protect these animals for future generations to enjoy.

Zoe Doubleday, Associate Professor and Marine Ecologist, Adelaide University and Bethany Jackel, PhD student, Flinders University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Imagine you wake up one morning and look out your window. You see a sky of red, hear a ferocious blast of wind and watch as tree branches creak and crack.

No, the apocalypse has not descended on your local neighbourhood. You’ve just been caught in the middle of a dust storm.

These storms form when strong winds lift sand and dust particles into the atmosphere. Of the two, sand storms typically occur closer to the ground and travel shorter distances. Finer dust particles can be lifted high into the atmosphere and travel across oceans and continents. Dust from Australia has been found as far away as Antarctica.

Sand and dust storms typically occur in arid environments where the ground is dry, loose and vegetation-free. But they can inflict severe and lasting damage on homes and buildings, solar panels and farm machinery. And as our planet rapidly warms, sand and dust storms will become more common.

So what does this mean for arid nations like Australia? And what can we do about it?

Our climate is rapidly warming, dramatically reshaping weather around the globe. In this three-part series, we explore a range of emerging climate phenomena and consider how to respond to their destructive effects.

Where the dust blows…

In Australia, our dust storms mainly come from the vast, dry region of the Lake Eyre Basin in central and outback Australia.

Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre and Mudna-Lake Frome are two ephemeral lakes from this region that periodically flood and then dry out. This process brings new sediment that, when the water disappears, dries out and can then be lifted up by strong winds. Dust storms also form in South Australia’s semi-arid regions and the intensively farmed areas of Victoria and western New South Wales.

In Australia, dust storms travel across two main paths: from the Lake Eyre Basin across south-east Australia, and from central Australia out to Western Australia. However, recent evidence suggests there’s a third, largely unrecognised dust pathway stretching from the Lake Eyre Basin into northern Queensland and northern Australia.

Damaging dust

Sand and dust can cause major disruptions to everyday life.

Transport networks are particularly vulnerable. Sand and dust particles reduce visibility and prevent tyres from gripping the road properly, leading to more vehicle crashes.

Sand and dust storms also damage infrastructure. They can wear down farm equipment and irrigation systems, uproot fences and pollute water reservoirs. Sand and dust storms are costly to clean up. After they roll through, farmers can be left with broken machinery, reduced crop yields and less fertile topsoil. We saw this after the 2009 “Red Dawn” dust storm that swept across eastern Australia. In New South Wales alone, affected landowners spent an estimated A$5.1 million rebuilding their farms.

Sand and dust storms can hamper energy production. If dust settles on solar panels – a process known as “soiling” – they work less efficiently and need regular cleaning. One study found dust reduced how much power solar panels generated each month by roughly 4.5%.

However, sand and dust storms don’t just inflict visible damage. These storms carry microscopic particles that, if inhaled, can enter your lungs and bloodstream and cause various health problems. Dust particles may contain heavy metals such as iron and aluminium. They can absorb pathogens and facilitate the spread of infectious diseases such as Valley fever and bacterial meningitis.

When dust, drought and fire converge

In the 1940s, several severe dust storms swept across Australia, mainly due to the drying effects of intensive livestock grazing. So the term “Australian dust bowl” was born. This dusty era ushered in a new wave of land management and soil conservation policies designed to keep the dust at bay.

These environmental policies proved effective, and since that period south-east Australia has not recorded such high levels of dust. But today, more dust flies around during prolonged droughts. We saw this during the 2009 “Red Dawn” dust storm and the “Tinderbox drought” of 2017-19, which coincided with the horrific Black Summer bushfires. This compounding disaster – when two or more disasters occur together or in quick succession – devastated many communities and put immense pressure on emergency responders.

Recent storms suggest the dust is far from settled. In 2025, Sydneysiders were again shrouded in red dust, while just months later Northern Territory mine workers were caught in an intense dust storm racing across the Tanami Desert. And last May, a dust storm and its unrelenting winds ravaged the South Australian town of Port Pirie.

So, what can we do?

To prepare for future sand and dust storms, we urgently need more research. We are currently investigating how the on-and-off flooding of rivers in the Lake Eyre Basin produces dust. Satellites are also helping us better understand where major dust storms come from and travel to in Australia.

The effect of climate change on these processes should be another research priority. And we must also ensure our environmental policies address both why we are experiencing more dust and how we can protect our communities, ecosystems and infrastructure from the damage it causes.

Tegan Clark, PhD Candidate, College of Systems and Society, Australian National University and Isabelle Finlay, PhD Candidate, Geography and Environment, Loughborough University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

You may have heard reports of fish die-offs or seen photos of hauntingly bleached coral.

Those are just two signs a marine heatwave has swept through the sea.

Marine heatwaves happen when the ocean remains abnormally hot for an extended period. While they may be invisible from the shore, their impacts can wreak havoc underwater – killing various kinds of coral, seagrass and fish.

As climate change continues to warm the ocean, marine heatwaves will only become more frequent and severe. While we cannot stop these marine disasters happening, we can work to better understand them and reduce their impacts on vulnerable ocean ecosystems.

Our climate is rapidly warming, dramatically reshaping weather around the globe. In this three-part series, we explore a range of emerging climate phenomena and consider how to respond to their destructive effects.

The science of marine heatwaves

Marine heatwaves are naturally occurring weather patterns that can form when hotter water near the surface of the ocean doesn’t mix with cooler water below. This is most common when conditions are hot, dry and windless. However, marine heatwaves can also develop when unusually strong currents carry extra heat from the tropics to colder ocean areas.

To identify a marine heatwave, scientists measure ocean temperatures and compare those observed ocean temperatures with the historical average temperature – the baseline or “normal” temperature of that location at a specific time of year.

Marine heatwaves occur when the ocean is hotter than 90% of historical temperature records. To be considered a heatwave, this abnormal heat must last for at least five consecutive days.

Ocean temperatures vary according to local conditions. Given marine heatwaves are measured in relation to a region’s normal seasonal ocean temperatures, they can happen anywhere and at any time of year. For example, a water temperature of 25°C at Western Australia’s Ningaloo Reef might not seem warm for that tropical area. However, 25°C in the waters around Tasmania would be considered extreme.

Terrestrial heatwaves follow the same logic as marine heatwaves. But a land-based heatwave only needs to last three days to be classified as a heatwave. Minimum night and maximum day temperatures must also be unusually hot.

An underwater disaster

Given marine heatwaves can happen in any part of the ocean, all marine ecosystems are at risk.

However, marine species cope in different ways. Those that are mobile, such as fish, can swim to cooler waters. In contrast, coral, kelp or bottom-dwelling creatures such as sea urchins can’t relocate. This means they are directly impacted by marine heatwaves. For example, they may struggle to reproduce due to heat stress. They also suffer indirect impacts, such as a lack of food if species further down the food chain are wiped out by a marine heatwave.

On land, marine heatwaves can be economically and culturally devastating for coastal communities. They can cost fisheries, aquaculture businesses and tourism operators billions of dollars in lost income. Marine heatwaves may also damage culturally significant sites, as in the case of Shark Bay, a World Heritage-listed marine ecosystem off the WA coast. They may also destroy blue carbon habitats. These are ocean-based habitats, such as mangroves and seagrass, that absorb carbon and help cool the planet.

In February 2011, a massive compound heatwave – where a marine and a terrestrial heatwave happened together – decimated ecosystems across WA. On land, it killed trees and caused the endangered cockatoo population to crash. Beneath the sea, it triggered widespread coral bleaching in the Pilbara, Ningaloo and Houtman Abrolhos Islands regions.

In September 2024, another marine heatwave swept through the waters off the coast of WA lasting several months. It was the state’s longest, largest and most severe marine heatwave ever. It killed about half of the coral in the North West Shelf region.

Most recently, sea surface temperatures have surged during the 2026 European summer, in some places by up to 5°C higher than average. This threatens marine ecosystems across the Mediterranean Sea, North Sea and Baltic Sea.

Worse under climate change

Marine heatwaves are a natural part of our planet’s variable climate system.

But climate change means they are becoming more common and severe. They are also lasting longer. The ocean’s thermal baseline – or the natural temperature of the ocean – is rising due to climate change. This means any temperature fluctuations compound the effects of this background warming.

Other climate drivers, including the El Niño and La Niña climate patterns, can also intensify marine heatwaves. In Australia, El Niño typically warms the waters off the east coast, heightening the risk of severe marine heatwaves there. La Niña tends to push warm water towards the west coast, driving extreme ocean temperatures off WA.

However, because of climate change, large-scale climate patterns like El Niño and La Niña are no longer necessary to trigger marine heatwaves. This means even the slightest change in these climate drivers might bring extreme heat to either coast.

Where to from here

To better understand the factors that drive marine heatwaves, we need further research that analyses changes in air and ocean currents. We should also prioritise research investigating the sub-surface ocean. Satellites monitor the surface but many severe marine heatwaves remain hidden underwater, devastating marine life without detection.

The most important step to reduce the impacts of marine heatwaves is to cut greenhouse gas emissions, limiting further ocean warming. At the same time, researchers are exploring other ways to help ecosystems adapt. These include introducing thermal tolerant species to vulnerable regions. Marine cloud brightening, which aims to temporarily reduce ocean heating by making clouds more reflective, is another option being investigated.

We must also invest in modelling to predict when future marine heatwaves may hit. Early warning systems are also vital to ensure fisheries and conservation zones can prepare for these increasingly common underwater disasters.

Sina Pinter, PhD Candidate in Ocean Dynamics, The University of Western Australia and Nicole L. Jones, Professor of Physical Oceanography, The University of Western Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Feral cats and foxes now roam across almost all of Australia. These predators are a major reason why many species have been driven to extinction.

In response, conservation groups and authorities have turned to safe havens – islands or large fenced-off areas on land. Well known havens include Newhaven in the Northern Territory and Faure Island off the coast of Western Australia.

After feral cats and foxes are removed, authorities can reintroduce endangered native mammals such as bilbies who can live their lives in the wild, rather than in zoos or captive breeding programs. Many are now flourishing, such as the brush-tailed bettong and greater bilby. These havens have become a powerful tool to pull many mammal species back from the brink.

Unfortunately, our new research shows mainland safe havens don’t yet offer strong protection for many other groups of animals, such as frogs, reptiles, fish, birds and invertebrates. Many species from these groups are similarly threatened by introduced predators as well as other invasive threats, from black rats to deadly fungal infections.

This is because safe havens are often set up for mammals and don’t protect the range of habitats other animal groups need or exclude their specific threats. We will need to create new safe havens for non-mammal species. We have pinpointed several priority areas on the mainland where future safe havens could extend protection.

Nowhere to hide

To test whether safe havens were protecting other animal groups, we examined the known ranges of 123 species of threatened reptiles, amphibians, birds and invertebrates considered highly susceptible to introduced species.

We found only two have populations currently inside existing safe havens – the great desert skink and western swamp tortoise. Some frog and fish species have specific havens, such as breeding sites fenced off to protect them from feral pigs or other threats.

Our research shows few current havens are likely to have suitable habitat for our target species in the future.

This means our current network of safe havens aren’t enough. We need more in different locations and designed to counter different threats.

What’s more, we will need to account for future shifts in where these threatened species will occur given human-induced climate change.

While existing safe havens can keep out cats and foxes, they’re not designed to stop rats or birds. But these can pose real threats to threatened invertebrates and amphibians.

Location, location, location

Australia will need safe havens for the foreseeable future. It makes sense to ensure our network is inclusive and protects as wide a range of species as possible, beyond just threatened mammals.

We used models of where species are likely to be found in the future while accounting for future climate projections. This let us identify the top 1% of priority locations for new safe havens aimed at protecting non-mammal species most at risk from invasive species.

Many of these regions are in eastern Australia. They include the Victorian Alps, the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, and Tasmania’s Central Highlands.

Creating a robust network

There’s no silver bullet to protect the many hundreds of Australian animal species at risk. Each often faces many different threats simultaneously in addition to invasive species.

As the safe haven network grows, it will be necessary to design some to respond to threats which cat and fox-proof fences don’t protect against.

Finer-scale fencing or netting may be needed, or the creation of havens in natural refuges such as isolated waterways or islands.

If priority locations lie in tough terrain where extensive fencing is less viable, it may work to create mini havens protecting a smaller set of species.

For some species, it may work to have “leaky” havens where invasive species can’t get in but threatened species can move in and out. This would help avoid genetic bottlenecks due to isolation.

For some species, fences won’t work at all. For instance, the green and golden bell frog is threatened by both the lethal chytrid fungus and invasive fish such as mosquitofish, which eat its eggs. For this species, our earlier research suggests the best safe haven would likely be a wetland on a high plateau rather than a fence.

A similar option for other species is to use mesas – high, isolated landforms with flat tops – to keep invaders out. This could be a cost-effective solution, as these provide long-term refuges for such species to recover.

All havens have limits

Keeping threatened species in the wild rather than captivity has many benefits. Bringing animals back to the land restores their key ecological roles, such as digging through soil and spreading seeds.

Their presence benefits other native species who they have evolved alongside over millions of years, making ecosystems more functional.

Despite these benefits, havens are not a long term solution. Animals protected from predators and other threats lose their wariness. If they’re released outside the fence, many are quickly eaten. Some researchers are exploring ways to expose animals to a few predators so that the wariest survive and breed. The point of safe havens is to buy time for scientists to find longer-term solutions.

Our research offers a blueprint for a new generation of climate-ready safe havens able to protect many more species and give many lesser-known species a fighting chance.

John Gould, Senior Research Assistant in Conservation Biology, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Intense heat, unprecedented wildfires and savage droughts have hit Europe hard this northern summer. More than 25,000 people have died from the heat, while hundreds of thousands have been evacuated.

Farmers in the United Kingdom have warned of possible shortages of some foods if the drought continues. The Rhine River has fallen to record low levels, disrupting one of Europe’s most important trade and freight arteries.

Climate change made this angry summer vastly more likely. As governments are realising, climate change is no longer just an environmental issue, but a significant challenge for economies, infrastructure and geopolitics.

In the past few years, climate action has dropped down the international agenda. Pro-fossil-fuel governments have pushed back against already-inadequate efforts on climate action. Media coverage is falling, even as climate damage increases.

But will these recent, palpable forms of damage make climate action a priority again?

Responding to disasters – or acting on climate?

Europe is the fastest-warming continent. Temperatures are rising at about double the global rate.

European policymakers have long taken the lead to drive climate action. Many European countries were among the high-ambition nations that helped secure the hard-won Paris Agreement of 2015, with a goal of holding climate change to 1.5°C.

In the 11 years since Paris, progress has been made on electric vehicles and very rapid uptake of solar. Emissions have slowed but not yet begun to fall. Climate change has slipped down the agenda. One estimate counts the reversal of 45 climate policies across 15 jurisdictions in the year to July. The legislated 1.5°C limit is not going to be met.

In Europe, the climate change agenda has been overshadowed by war and instability, trade tensions, economic pressures and the rise of populist parties critical of existing climate policies.

Yet the picture is far from uniform. Public concern about climate change remains high across much of the continent, and this summer has increased its visibility. In Sweden, for example, climate change is a polarising but prominent issue ahead of the upcoming national election.

The problem is, worsening climate damage can amplify concern but divert resources away from the long-term investments needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and boost adaptation and preparedness.

This perverse feedback loop is known as derailment risk. The only way to escape this downward spiral is to work now to cut emissions, boost resilience and blunt the effects of climate disruptions.

Climate change also exposes weaknesses in how governments manage risk. Prevention and resilience are often underfunded because benefits are widely shared and may not be realised for years, while costs are typically paid upfront. Responsibility is often split across agencies and levels of government, which creates a bias towards responding to disasters after they happen rather than investing to reduce future losses.

Authorities will need to fund quick-response disaster recovery efforts that both reduce long-term risks and improve response capacity, such as nature-based solutions or rebuilding destroyed houses and infrastructure better or in different locations after disasters.

Surprisingly, natural disasters and climate change have long been discussed in quite separate policy worlds. Last year, a United Nations report found a lack of policy coherence between disaster risk management and climate change adaptation in Europe.

For example, many European insurance policies only fund “like for like” replacement after disaster, limiting people’s ability to rebuild a destroyed house as a stronger, better version. Increasingly, frequent disasters are pushing the insurance industry business model to its limits.

Climate change poses threats to many interconnected systems on which we rely, from farming to roads to electricity grids to glacier-fed rivers. Worse, these threats can interact and compound. Low river levels have made it much harder to cool nuclear reactors in Hungary and Romania, raising the risk of power outages and fuelling tensions between the nations.

Compounding threats can quickly trigger economic disruption, political tension and institutional strain.

What does this mean for Australia?

Australia has long looked to Europe for policy guidance and leadership on climate change.

But if Europe is focused on responding to disasters rather than climate action, it could hamper already ailing global climate policy efforts. The Trump administration in the United States wants to keep selling gas, coal and oil. While China has emerged as the single biggest force in electrification and clean energy, it has yet to lead on climate.

At COP31, the next global climate talks in Turkey in November, Australia will take on a hard-won diplomatic role to try to get climate action back on track.

Can we respond to disaster – and get serious on climate change?

As Europe grapples with this summer’s damage, we can expect to see concern about climate change increase.

Authorities can only devote so much time, money and attention to problems. There’s now a real risk that intensifying immediate disasters will make it harder to tackle the underlying problem – even if citizens demand renewed action.

But if we don’t get serious in bringing down emissions and reducing our vulnerability to climatic hazards, the next disasters will only be worse.

Lauren Rickards, Professor of Climate Change Adaptation, La Trobe University; Hartmut Fünfgeld, ICLEI Professor of Practice - Local Government Climate Resilience, La Trobe University, and Magnus Moglia, Associate Professor of Sustainability Science, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is a true natural wonder: a unique and diverse underwater seascape the size of a small country.

However, cycles of disturbance and recovery threaten to turn its colourful coral gardens into algal-dominated seascapes – then back again. And these cycles are becoming more volatile as our world warms.

At the Australian Institute of Marine Science, we’ve been documenting these changes for the past four decades through our Long-Term Monitoring Program. This is one of the longest records of continuous coral reef data in the world.

Concerningly, we’ve watched the health of the Great Barrier Reef begin to fluctuate dramatically over the past 15 years. The 2024 mass coral bleaching – where a record-breaking marine heatwave bleached coral reefs from the Caribbean to the Indian and Pacific Oceans – was particularly destructive. It caused the largest single-year decline in coral ever measured in two regions.

However, our latest report reveals some promising signs of recovery.

In hot water

In 2025, the Great Barrier Reef endured its sixth coral bleaching since 2016 – one of only two back-to-back bleachings in the reef’s history.

However, our latest survey data shows the 2025 bleaching was smaller and less severe than in 2024. This means substantially less coral died, showing not all periods of bleaching have the same outcome. A heatwave’s intensity and duration determines whether corals die or survive. If corals get relief from the heat, they can regain their symbiotic algae and survive.

On the Great Barrier Reef, sea surface temperatures generally peak between January and March. During these summer months, marine heatwaves can increase the risk of coral bleaching. Marine heatwaves occur if ocean temperatures remain unusually warm for the location and time of year for at least five consecutive days.

In spring 2025, a marine heatwave swept across the reef, raising ocean temperatures by up to 1.5°C. According to the Bureau of Meteorology’s climate trends, December 2025 was the reef’s hottest December on record since 1900. If the heatwave continued through summer, the unrelenting heat would have likely led to widespread coral bleaching.

Signs of recovery

Last year, we recorded the largest single-year decline in living coral cover in four decades of monitoring. This followed the devastating 2024 mass coral bleaching. Coral cover refers to how much of the reef surface is covered in live hard coral, compared with algae, sand and other organisms. It’s one indicator of how healthy a reef is.

In good news, our latest report suggests coral cover increased slightly in some parts of the reef from 2025 to 2026. In the northern region (Cape York to Cooktown), coral cover rose from 30% to 35.1%. This figure increased from 28.6% to 31.6% in the central region (Cooktown to Proserpine). This puts both regions above the long-term average of coral cover. However, coral cover in the reef’s southern region (Proserpine to Gladstone) remained below the long-term average, decreasing slightly from 26.9% to 26.4%.

So, what is driving this?

In early 2026, we noticed signs of regional coral bleaching in the northern and central Great Barrier Reef. But a monsoon soon arrived, bringing widespread cloud and rainy weather, helping to cool the reef at just the right time.

Australian monsoon activity typically coincides with the northern wet season, from October to April. During an active monsoon, clouds, rain and winds help cool the surface of the ocean. Breaking waves and turbulence then mix hotter surface waters with deeper, cooler waters. The monsoon season also reverses winds over the tropics, so northern Australian winds blow as moist northwesterly winds.

Still challenges ahead

Our ability to assess threats to the Great Barrier Reef has vastly improved in the past decade. Global forecast systems can now predict ocean temperatures weeks to months in advance, providing early warnings of marine heatwaves and coral bleaching risks around Australia.

But the reef faces many urgent and increasing pressures.

Recent bleaching means corals are particularly vulnerable to record-breaking global ocean temperatures and a predicted strong El Niño.

Crown-of-thorns starfish are one well documented threat to the reef’s corals. Since the 1960s, there have been four waves of crown-of-thorns outbreaks, with a fifth wave currently emerging in the far north. And these coral-eating starfish will move further south in the coming years.

The reef was also hit by two tropical cyclones – Koji and Narelle – between January and March 2026. Cyclones have some cooling effect, but may whip up enormous waves that destroy coral in their path.

The Great Barrier Reef has again shown its remarkable ability to recover. But we can’t take this for granted. Instead, we must urgently act to reduce our carbon emissions and minimise climate change. Developing science interventions offers a pathway to build the reef’s resilience and help it survive a warming future. And we must protect our marine parks to ensure the reef not only survives, but thrives.

Jessica Benthuysen, Physical Oceanographer, Australian Institute of Marine Science; Daniela Ceccarelli, Reef Fish Ecologist, Australian Institute of Marine Science, and Mike Emslie, Senior Research Scientist in Reef Ecology, Australian Institute of Marine Science

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia is famous for its coral reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast and Ningaloo Reef in the west. Both World Heritage-listed reefs attract thousands of visitors each year.

But there’s another vast network of coral reefs in Australia that few people know about. More than 1,000 uncharted northern coral reefs were recently identified using satellite imagery along the north coast of Australia.

Due to the remote location, and the challenge of conducting fieldwork in croc-inhabited waters, these northern reefs have been largely overlooked and understudied. They are deeply valuable to the species that call them home, and the Traditional Owners on whose Sea Countries they lie yet their value to Australia has too often gone unrecognised.

As marine heatwaves and coral bleaching on Australian reefs become more frequent and severe, work to safeguard them must extend beyond iconic systems to include Australia’s northern reefs. Otherwise, we risk losing them – not because they are less important, but because they are largely out of sight and out of mind for many Australians.

Why Australia’s hidden reefs matter

Coral reefs provide immense ecological, economic and cultural value by harbouring marine animals and plants, supporting fisheries that feed millions of people worldwide, and buffering coastlines from erosion. For Indigenous peoples around the globe, reefs contain culturally significant sites and resources essential for cultural and community wellbeing.

This means reef decline is not only an ecological crisis but a social one, which threatens livelihoods, cultural heritage and fundamental human rights.

The urgency to understand these understudied reefs has never been greater. Following global coral bleaching in 2023–25, which affected 87% of the world’s coral reefs, climate models predict strong El Niño conditions are returning to Australia this summer. We can expect warmer ocean temperatures and a heightened risk of coral bleaching.

Climate change is changing Australia’s reefs, and we must tackle the climate crisis. But, concurrently, we need to give reefs the best possible chance of surviving the changes already underway. Consequently, Australia’s efforts to conserve and restore its reefs will influence the future of many of them. And we face difficult choices about where to direct our limited funding and subsequent conservation efforts.

In recent months, an additional A$91.8 million of federal funding has been announced to protect the Great Barrier Reef. And the Western Australian government has launched an $11 million coral regeneration and enhancement program for Ningaloo Reef and Exmouth.

But Northern Territory reefs have not received the same attention, and when reefs remain excluded from conservation and management decisions they are at risk of silent loss.

Silent loss: The case of Groote Eylandt

Our new research, undertaken in partnership with the Anindilyakwa Land & Sea Rangers, merges modern science with First Nations knowledge of Sea Country to document changes to local coral reefs around Groote Eylandt, the largest island in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Although reefs in this region are estimated to cover more than 3,200 square kilometres, they were only first described in the scientific literature in 2004. For context, more than 5,000 scientific studies have focused on the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef, yet fewer than ten have examined reefs in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and none have focused on the corals themselves.

Working alongside the Anindilyakwa Land & Sea Rangers, we surveyed five reef sites around Groote Eylandt and observed coral cover on the reefs ranging from 5–47%. These sites shared the characteristics of some of the world’s most marginal reefs, where tougher coral species have persisted.

Massive, slow-growing species dominated, while fast-growing branching corals – which create much of a reef’s three-dimensional structure – were rare or absent. Without historical monitoring, we do not yet know if these branching corals have always been scarce, or whether past disturbances, such as bleaching or cyclones, have driven their decline.

Our work also documented significant coral bleaching in February 2024, which may otherwise have gone unrecorded. It was only detected because of our strong partnership with the Anindilyakwa Land & Sea Rangers, whose stewardship was expanded to include visual inspections of the local coral reefs. This enabled us to identify and document bleaching.

This shows designing scientific projects with local knowledge is essential for understanding remote reef systems, which have historically received scant scientific attention.

We need to know more

Remote, understudied Australian reefs are just as vulnerable to climate change as other, better-known and celebrated reef systems.

Given their immense value, particularly for Traditional Owners like the Anindilyakwa peoples, more research is needed to understand their changing ecology.

Without long-term monitoring and local expertise, Australian scientists are unable to track how these reefs are changing, or make wise decisions about their conservation.

Emma F. Camp, Future Reefs Team Leader, University of Technology Sydney; Ariel K. Pezner, Chancellor's Research Fellow, University of Technology Sydney, and Dane P. G. Wattle, PhD student, Marine Biology, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Many people are blissfully unaware the world’s frogs and amphibians are fighting their own deadly pandemic. In fact, this fungal disease – chytridiomycosis, or chytrid for short – is the worst wildlife disease on record.

The chytrid fungus has caused the global extinction of 90 amphibian species and affected nearly 30% of all globally threatened amphibians.

Scientists have responded with ingenious and novel ways to help frogs survive, such as frog saunas – where amphibians can warm up and bake off their infections – and captive breeding programs.

But our new research suggests some of these may come at a cost to a core aspect of frog survival: their ability to reproduce.

Frogs in the front line

Frogs are more robust than we often give them credit for, having survived several previous mass extinctions. But some scientists argue amphibians are now on the front line of a sixth mass extinction.

Under the combined pressures of disease, habitat destruction and rising temperatures, we are now seeing an alarming decline in frog species. If we want frog populations to recover in the long term, we need to ensure not only their survival, but their reproductive health.

Australia is home to roughly 250 frog species, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth. They are also among the worst affected globally by chytrid, which is thought to have caused seven frog extinctions. A further 36 species are under threat.

What we studied

The chytrid fungus and many frogs flourish in cool, moist habitats. So scientists have experimented with making the environment inhospitable to chytrid without harming frogs.

Deliberately exposing frogs to chytrid and following this with heat therapy in “frog saunas” offers a protective effect in some frogs. This approach was tested on green and golden bell frogs and found to act like a vaccination, making it more likely they would survive reinfection. These interventions are vital for helping amphibians survive, and should continue to be developed and used.

But survival is not the same as recovery. Our new research found both being infected with the fungus and the use of heat therapy may reduce frog sperm quality. And this could affect their reproductive ability long after they recover. Our findings suggest we need to carefully study what happens after interventions are used.

Successful treatment but unexpected side-effects

The green and golden bell frog, Ranoidea aurea, is one of the species hit hardest by chytrid. It has disappeared from more than 90% of its former range in southeastern Australia.

We examined the effects of chytrid infection and heat treatment on sperm quality in male green and golden bell frogs. We found frogs with moderate infections produced higher concentrations of sperm than uninfected frogs, which may reflect a phenomenon known as “terminal investment”.

This occurs when animals facing a threat to their survival respond by increasing their reproductive effort, in an attempt to pass on their genes before it’s too late. Similar responses have been observed in other amphibian species affected by chytrid, but responses to chytrid can vary.

Some frogs may increase sperm numbers, calling effort (to attract mates) or breeding displays, while in others there has been no observed effect to these traits. Research in this area is still ongoing, and trends can be hard to identify because we don’t know how one reproductive trait may correlate with another – for example, an increase in calling effort may not mean there are increased sperm numbers.

Interestingly, in our study, frogs with the worst infections did not have higher sperm counts. Instead, they had poorer sperm quality, particularly reduced sperm movement, which is essential for fertilisation. Frogs with only moderate infections had higher sperm counts, but lower sperm movement. We believe these findings indicate more energy being directed to mounting an immune response as infection progresses.

Frogs that underwent heat treatment to clear the fungal infection also showed substantial declines in sperm concentration, which persisted for months. While this sperm movement recovered over time, sperm numbers remained unusually low six months later.

So while heat treatment successfully eliminated the disease, the treatment itself appeared to impose a reproductive cost. This hidden cost could be missed if we consider survival from disease as the only indicator of success.

Does this mean no more frog saunas?

We are definitely not saying conservationists should abandon heat treatments or other disease management strategies. The evidence overwhelmingly shows these tools are valuable and can help save frogs from a disease that has devastated amphibian populations worldwide.

Instead, our findings suggest conservation programs should broaden what success looks like. If a frog survives infection but its reproductive capacity is reduced, conservation managers may need to account for this when they plan breeding programs, translocations and population recovery efforts.

Monitoring the reproductive health of frogs alongside their disease status could help identify any hidden long-term consequences before they affect population growth. Encouragingly, researchers overseas and in Australia are already exploring a diverse range of approaches. These include assisted reproductive technologies, captive breeding and genetic biobanking.

Our study highlights how solutions can sometimes have unexpected trade-offs. Understanding this is critical if we want conservation efforts to keep frogs alive today, and ensure thriving populations for generations to come.

Rose Upton, Lecturer in Biotechnology, University of Newcastle; Alex Callen, Post-doctoral researcher, University of Newcastle, and Anne Ibbotson, HDR candidate, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Albanese government will expand the scheme providing incentives to households and businesses to acquire renewable energy to enable larger businesses, farms and community facilities to install solar systems up to ten times bigger than presently allowed.

Energy minister Chris Bowen will announce the broadening of the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme on Wednesday, saying it will address the “missing middle” in Australia’s energy transition.

“The missing middle is mid-scale solar,” he says in his speech to the National Press Club, part of which has been released ahead of delivery.

Bowen says while utility-scale solar and rooftop household solar are going strongly, the gap is in solar on factories, warehouses, farming sheds and large industrial premises. These form a “big empty roof space ripe for solar generation”.

Australia is already the world’s top rooftop solar nation, per capita. But there is four times as much residential solar on homes as on commercial buildings. In Europe, it’s the opposite – there is 1.5 times as much solar on businesses as on houses.

Bowen says data from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis show residential solar installation sits at 22 gigawatts, but businesses have only installed about 5.6 gigawatts.

Under the government’s announcement, the solar discount will be widened to include installations of up to 1 MW in size. Bowen says this will cut the installation costs for commercial, industrial and agricultural rooftops by about 20%.

The installation of a 250kW solar system on a medium size enterprise such as a retailer could save upfront about $68,000 on installation. “Going forward they’d be generating about 345 megawatt hours of electricity each year – a potential saving of $50,000 in annual electricity costs,” Bowen says.

A larger operation installing a 850kW system – enough for a manufacturing business, a large retail complex, or a logistics warehouse – would have an upfront discount of about $232,000. It would be generating annually about 1,173 MWhs, with savings of about $175,000 in energy costs.

“This isn’t just about energy bills – it’s good for productivity, freeing up capital to invest back in their business,” Bowen says.

He also is concerned about installation delays for large rooftop solar.

Businesses are telling him they have run into delays in getting network services providers to approve installation.

Many of these delays “are unacceptable and simply make it so hard for businesses to install solar that they just give up”.

To address the “road block”, Bowen is asking the Australian Energy Market Commission to require network providers to approve commercial and industrial solar much more quickly and efficiently.

The expansion of the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme is expected to be budget neutral because the scheme operates through a market mechanism. The installation of a solar system generates certificates which energy companies buy.

The expansion starts October 1.

Previous research has shown Australia has enough unused commercial and industrial rooftop space to supply at least 25% of its annual electricity use – five times as much as currently supplied by gas-fired generators.

The Australian Conservation Foundation welcomed the change. “The Albanese government isn’t nailing it when it comes to fossil fuel exports, but on the domestic renewables front – it’s just about bang on,” ACF’s national climate policy adviser Annika Reynolds said.

“However pressing down on the accelerator for renewables alone is unlikely to get Australia to 82% renewables by 2030 which is what we need for a safe climate and an energy independent grid. We urge the Albanese government to explore every possible lever to firming up the closures of remaining coal and gas clunkers in Australia.”

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australian homes and cities are increasingly producing and storing their own power.

After two decades of growth, solar panels are now on the rooftops of one in three Australian homes. And home batteries have surged after the Australian government began offering subsidies last year. Around 450,000 batteries had been installed by the end of 2025 – about 4% of Australia’s 10.9 million households.

What would happen if these trends continue? It’s tempting to picture a future where Australian homes and cities could power themselves using these two decentralised technologies.

But while rooftop solar and batteries can take us a long way, they aren’t enough to take most households off-grid – let alone run entire cities.

The real question is how much household power demand can be met by solar and batteries, at what times of day, and under what conditions. These five charts show what’s possible – and what’s not.

How far could these technologies take us?

As of April 30, the National Energy Market had close to 26 gigawatts installed capacity of small-scale rooftop solar, which includes small-scale rooftop PV installed on homes, businesses and other eligible premises.

Solar panels never produce at their full capacity. Clouds cut output, and there’s no sun at night. As a result, that 26GW of panels produced 4GW of power on average from January to March this year.

That’s still significant. It’s equivalent to 16% of demand, and almost four times higher than the same quarter eight years ago. Solar-rich South Australia had 28% of underlying demand met by rooftop solar. During sunny, low-demand periods, rooftop solar can meet around 60% of National Energy Market demand.

Rooftop solar capacity has been increasing rapidly since 2017. But it could go much higher still. Australia’s energy market operator (AEMO) projects small-scale solar capacity (rooftop and other small systems) could almost triple by 2050 to around 87GW.

If all suitable household rooftops were fully used for solar, capacity could reach around 61GW. But homes are only part of Australia’s rooftop solar potential. Once commercial, industrial and other buildings are included, the technical potential is much larger – around 179GW.

This also helps explain why AEMO forecasts for small-scale solar capacity eventually rises above 61GW – its forecast includes rooftop and other small-scale systems on businesses and other premises as well as homes. When large-scale solar farms are also counted, Australia is likely to pass 61GW of total solar capacity within a decade.

This progress is significant. But it also changes the problem that the grid must solve.

Before the rise of wind, solar and batteries, coal plants supplied much of Australia’s electricity. These work best when running steadily, as they can increase or decrease output relatively slowly.

Solar changes this equation.

Power from rooftop solar first meets demand within homes and businesses. At times, solar can exceed local demand, requiring excess power to be exported to the grid, stored or curtailed. As the sun sets, solar output falls rapidly. Demand for grid-supplied electricity then rises sharply, often peaking in late afternoon or evening.

This pattern of low daytime demand and high evening demand is known as the “duck curve”. It poses challenges for grid operators, who have to manage very low grid demand during the day and then rapidly bring on other generation or storage as solar output falls and evening demand rises.

The problem can be partly solved by coordinating home batteries and other types of energy storage, as they can store excess solar and release it at peak times.

What rooftop solar and home batteries can’t do

While rooftop solar and home batteries have clear promise, they’re not a simple substitute for the grid, especially during evenings, heatwaves or prolonged cloudy periods.

Heavy industry, data centres and other big power users require substantial and often continuous supplies of electricity which cannot be wholly met by small-scale energy production.

Home batteries are already reducing how much power households buy from the grid.

But their usable stored energy remains limited relative to the amount of rooftop solar generation available. They’re good at reducing how much expensive power households buy at peak times, but not so good at providing extended backup over an extended cloudy period or during evenings amid an intense heatwave.

What future should we aim for?

What we’re likely to see is rooftop solar and household batteries operating alongside large-scale solar and wind farms to supply much of Australia’s electricity as conditions allow.

We will still need local networks to supply electricity when solar output is low, and carry surplus power in the opposite direction. New transmission lines are needed to better connect large scale renewable areas with cities and heavy industry.

Long-duration energy storage, such as pumped hydro and grid-scale batteries, will be necessary to keep Australia running through periods of low wind and sunlight. A few gas plants will have to be kept as backup.

As the renewable transition progresses, we will need to judge progress not by how many solar arrays and home batteries have been installed, but by how well we can make use of them alongside larger-scale renewables and storage.

We should not aim for a future where household after household quits the grid. Far better to build a resilient, integrated system where homes produce and store more electricity, power grids deal with two-way flows of power intelligently and large-scale renewables and storage cover the periods rooftop solar and batteries can’t respond to.

Magnus Söderberg, Professor and Director, Centre for Applied Energy Economics and Policy Research, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia is installing home batteries at extraordinary speed.

Around 600,000 homes now have one, and more than 400,000 batteries were installed in the 12 months to June 2026. This growth has largely been driven by the federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program, which initially cut the upfront cost of eligible batteries by about 30%.

This is promising news. Batteries can help households use more of their own solar power and keep essential appliances running during a blackout. They also lower evening grid demand.

But there is a catch. A large battery can store more electricity, but can’t fix a house that wastes energy. That’s where our new research comes in.

Better by design

Our new paper reviewed 97 studies on off-grid and self-sufficient housing. There was plenty of sophisticated research on solar panels, batteries and backup systems, but much less attention was paid to the design of the house itself.

Enter: architects.

A home’s orientation, insulation, windows, shading, ventilation and room layout all shape how much energy it consumes. Architects make decisions about these features early in the design process, often long before a battery installer becomes involved.

When these decisions are thoughtfully made, the house can remain comfortable while using less heating and cooling. This reduces the amount of electricity that must be supplied by solar panels and batteries.

A poorly insulated house, for example, will need heavy heating on a chilly winter’s evening. And if it has large, unshaded and west-facing windows, its rooms could overheat in summer.

After the sun goes down, your house may rely on electricity from a battery, the grid or another backup source such as a diesel or petrol generator. If your existing battery can’t meet your after-dark energy needs, you might rush out to buy a bigger one. However, buying a larger battery to cover avoidable demand is a bit like fitting a bigger fuel tank to a car that uses too much petrol. You may travel further before refuelling, but the car is still inefficient.

What we learnt from one regional NSW home

Our research team took a closer look at a newly built off-grid family home near Armidale, in the cool climate of regional New South Wales.

Traditionally, the architecture and energy system of a house are designed in separate stages. In this project, however, the architect and energy specialists worked together from early in the design process. This ensured:

1. the home was positioned to capture more northern sunlight in winter but less in summer

2. its insulation, glazing, construction materials and internal zoning – how a home is divided into functional areas – were designed to reduce heating and cooling demand

3. the family’s appliances and daily routines were considered when estimating how much power the house would need.

Compared with the initial off-grid energy system design, the final solar-and-battery system reduced usable battery storage by about 19%, from 56 to 45.6 kilowatt hours. The estimated upfront cost of the solar-and-battery system fell by around A$11,000, or 15%. And these changes had little effect on the reliability of the energy system.

However, this is just one off-grid home, so these savings can’t be replicated for every household. Its battery is also much larger than those typically needed in grid-connected homes as this home must store enough power for use when solar generation is low, such as at night and during cloudy periods.

How can I buy the right battery for my home?

Building an energy-efficient home is all about the process: start by reducing unnecessary energy use, then size the battery around your house and your family’s energy needs.

But before shopping for a battery, you should consider:

• when you use electricity, such as after school pick-up or just before bedtime, not just the figure on your last bill. You can also review a full year of smart-meter data to identify trends in your energy use

• the storage capacity and power output of your existing battery. Capacity refers to how much energy the battery can hold, while power output tells you how many appliances it can run at once

• if you have solar panels, how much power your panels produce. Most solar systems let you check this through the inverter display or the manufacturer’s monitoring app

• if you can use appliances during daylight hours and whether your house is well shaded and insulated. If it isn’t, you can make several straightforward upgrades such as adding insulation and sealing draughts.

Where to from here

In Australia, early government rebate schemes offered higher discounts for larger batteries. As a result, the average battery capacity of Australian homes rose sharply. However, this rebate structure created a much stronger incentive to buy larger systems.

In May 2026, the rules changed so support now falls as battery size increases. This is a sensible correction.

However, policy could go further by linking battery rebates with home-energy assessments, where an accredited home-energy assessor inspects your home’s construction, insulation, windows and shading. This gives you a rating to help identify ways to make your home more energy-efficient. Rebate schemes should also account for upgrades such as insulation, external shading and efficient appliances.

Australia’s battery boom is welcome. But the best battery is not necessarily biggest one. Instead, it’s the one matches your energy needs, the design of your home and our rapidly changing climate.

Jena Glover, PhD Researcher, Architecture, Griffith University; Mohammad Sanjari, Senior Lecturer, Electrical Engineering, Griffith University; Peyman Akhgar, Lecturer, Architecture, Griffith University, and Ruby Michael, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering and Built Environment, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When you are out and about at this time of year in many parts of Australia, a cold and sometimes drab winter is relieved by a blaze of brilliant yellow: soursob.

It can look pretty, but sadly it’s an introduced weed that should have nothing to do with an Australian winter.

Soursob, Oxalis pes-caprae, is an introduced weed from Africa. It is also known as soursop, sourgrass and Cape sorrel, among other names. The name pes-caprae means goat’s foot and refers to the pattern formed by the leaves.

Soursob was first planted in Australian gardens for its flowers. These days the very mention of it would strike fear into the hearts of most gardeners – once it’s there, it’s very hard to get rid of.

Edible but problematic

Many people will know soursob from childhood.

I remember, as a child, we would eat the stems of these bright yellow, five-petalled flowers with a clover-like leaf – the taste is sour but not unpleasant.

The plant is as popular with little ones now. Posies are easily gathered, stalks tasted and taken home as a trophy of the day’s walk or visit to a playground.

The sour taste is due to the significant quantities of oxalic acid in soursob. Oxalic acid (H₂C₂O₄) is a small organic chemical that occurs naturally in humans as part of the metabolism of vitamin C and collagen.

It is found in many plants humans eat, including spinach, beans, potatoes and almonds. In other common foods such as rhubarb, peanuts and in a number of forage plants, oxalic acid adds flavour.

In its native South Africa, soursob has been widely used as a food or flavouring. A childhood dab on the tongue and the sour taste will do no harm, but taking things to excess can be problematic. The consumption of soursob in large amounts has been reported as a cause of death in hungry sheep.

Eradication – easier said than done

Given soursob can occur in great swards (meadows) in rural areas and is a very difficult garden pest to control, getting rid of it must be a priority.

But this is an Oxalis species we’re dealing with; getting rid of it is much easier said than done.

Soursob spreads by bulbs and the smaller bulbils (tiny bulbs that crowd around the main, larger bulb).

In its native South Africa the plant also seeds, but rarely does so in Australia because the introduced plants are usually infertile. This means the weed spreads more by bulbs and bulbils than by seed. We have dodged a bullet there, perhaps by sheer good luck.

On a large scale and in rural situations the only current way to effectively deal with soursob is to use herbicide or out-compete it with pasture or another crop that shades it out.

You cannot plough or cultivate the soil as this spreads the bulbs and bulbils. Whether you use herbicide or not, eradication will take several years and demands immense patience.

In home gardens, where many people are wisely reluctant to use chemicals, there are alternatives – but nearly all require an almost inhuman persistence.

The best time for control is just before flowering (early to mid-winter) when the bulbs are depleted and have put their resources into leaves and flower stalks and buds (sometimes called bulb exhaustion).

The idea is to starve the bulbs and bulbils over time. There are several approaches:

• don’t pull the plant out as this just spreads bulbils
• instead, simply remove all the leaves and flower buds and stalks; it’s not difficult to do by hand – but you have to keep doing it
• mow over soursob in your lawn – but you have to keep doing it
• plant over the soursob in an attempt to shade it out, which again can starve the bulbs – but you have to keep doing it
• attempt to smother and starve the plants with cardboard, carpet or plastic, but this is not good for your soils – and you have to keep doing it (I don’t recommend it).

All of these approaches take lots of time, effort and persistence. Adding a good layer of mulch (75-100mm deep) makes control and ultimate eradication much easier.

When it comes to a battle of persistence between a weed and a human, the weed will win most of the time. That is one of the things that makes a weed a weed.

Soursob is a persistent curse, but it can be beaten. It may take a few years, but in a garden I can attest that control and starvation does work.

What a sense of achievement – or is it victory? – you get when the dense swathe is diminished and then finally vanquished.

Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

From spears and the invention of the wheel to smartphones and robots, human societies have been building and using tools from the beginning. Human tool use has served to conquer new environments, increase communication, and ultimately alter the course of human evolution.

But humans are not alone in the use of tools. Our new study, published in the journal of Marine Mammal Science, shows dolphins can use seashells to help them hunt for fish. And they might be learning this clever tool use from their mothers.

Challenging human exceptionalism

Tool use in the animal kingdom is more widespread than you might think.

One of the first documented records of tool use in non-human animals is from the 1960s, when legendary primatologist Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees using sticks to fish termites out of hollow logs. This challenged the belief that tool use was unique to humans.

Studies have since shown that primates use stones as hammers to crack open nuts and fruit.

Dolphin researchers in Western Australia have found dolphins using basket sponges on their beaks to help them hunt through rubble-littered sea floors. Dolphins use the bowl-shaped basket sponges as a protective sheath for their rostrum or beak. This armor guards their beaks while they flush out fish hidden hidden behind broken coral, shells, and rocks.

Crows in New Caledonia fashion twigs into hooks and leaves into barbed “knives” to extract larvae from narrow crevices in trees. And octopuses have been observed carrying coconut shells to construct portable shelters.

These are just some of the many observations of animal tool use researchers have made over the years.

Stumbling upon tool use in the wild

While studying the local dolphin populations of the Great Sandy Marine Park (Butchulla Country) in southeast Queensland, our research team stumbled upon dolphin tool use in the wild.

From our research boat, we observed Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) “shelling” – a hunting behaviour where dolphins chase fish into a large empty shell, then lift the shell and manipulate it at the water’s surface to drain the fish into their mouths.

Between July and October 2025, we observed two adult female dolphins shelling. Using our cameras and drones, our team captured footage of both events.

These observations alone were important, as shelling had previously only been reported in Shark Bay, Western Australia.

Speaking to local tour operators, we learned that shelling was also observed and photographed in the Great Sandy Marine Park in 2013 and 2019. These older images show shelling has occurred in this population for longer than expected, but went unnoticed due to limited research in the region.

Mothers are the most important teacher

The Queensland shelling records show dolphins on opposite sides of Australia (more than 6,000 kilometres apart) learned to use tools in the exact same way, likely independent of one another.

This highlights how smart, clever and innovative dolphins are. And since this behaviour went unreported for more than a decade here, we have to wonder: are we missing it in other parts of Australia and around the world?

We also witnessed something even more exciting.

The calf of the second female observed in October 2025 picked up the shell within minutes after the mother dropped it. Our team captured footage of the calf holding the shell at the water’s surface in the same way as its mother, with what appears to be a lizardfish dangling from the shell.

This footage provides the first potential evidence of maternal social transmission, where the calf learns to shell by watching its mother.

This aligns with other skilled foraging techniques such as sponge foraging. Because calves depend on their mothers for so long, they have plenty of time to learn from them.

So just like for us humans, mothers likely hold a very important role as a calf’s first and most important teacher.

A cool dinner trick?

So why do some dolphins shell? Is it to capitalise on an opportunity to help them hunt? Does it possibly help reduce competition for food among other dolphins by using a special skill set they learned? Is it just a cool dinner trick?

There’s still a lot we don’t know, and many questions we will hopefully ask and answer with time.

For now, all we can say is that within Australia some dolphins are shelling, and that this innovative tool use has spread from individual to individual by learning.

Alexis Levengood, Lecturer in Animal Ecology, University of the Sunshine Coast

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Fifty-six million years ago, Earth’s forests reached a tipping point. They had grown dense, lush canopies at the start of one of Earth’s most intense episodes of greenhouse warming. But those canopies began to thin.

As global temperatures rose by as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius), heat and drought put stress on the forests, killing large numbers of trees. Forest canopies opened, exposing the ground to more sunlight and altering the movement of water through the landscape.

In southern Wyoming, ferns briefly flourished where relatives of elms, walnuts, dawn redwood and avocado trees once thrived. Then palms and other warmth-loving plants spread northward.

In a new study in the journal Science, my colleagues and I show how those Wyoming forests lost 60% of their canopy during this period, known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, and how it took them well over 100,000 years to recover.

The PETM was Earth’s closest natural analog to the warming the world is experiencing today, although humans are releasing carbon dioxide roughly 10 times faster than the planet’s natural processes did then.

Understanding what happened to the forests may help humanity recognize similar thresholds before the planet crosses them again.

Reading the forest from fossil leaves

As paleobotanists, my colleagues and I use plant fossils to identify which species once lived in a place. We wanted to answer a harder question: What did the forest itself look like and how did it change?

The structure of a forest – and importantly its canopy – controls the amount of light that reaches the forest floor, the temperature, water habitat and amount of carbon the forest can store, making it one of the clearest indicators of ecosystem function.

But how do you measure the density of a forest that disappeared 56 million years ago?

Ecologists measure canopy density using what’s known as leaf area index. Dense forests with multiple layers of leaves intercepting sunlight have a high leaf area index score, while open forests that allow more light to reach the forest floor have a lower score. Because the forest canopy influences shade, temperature, water loss and photosynthesis, the index provides a powerful measure of forest function.

Our clues to the density of forest canopies millions of years ago came from microscopic plant cuticles – the thin, waxy outer skin of leaves that can survive for millions of years in organic-rich sediments.

You can still see the shapes of epidermal cells in these fossil leaf fragments, and that’s important.

The cell shape reflects the amount of sunlight the leaf received while growing. Leaves that grow in shade develop longer, more elongated cells as they stretch out seeking sunlight. Those exposed to more sun develop shorter, rounder ones.

We turned that relationship into a tool for reconstructing ancient forests. To calibrate it, we collected soils from forests across Central and South America spanning a wide range of canopy densities. Each handful of soil contains cuticles shed by many different plants across the canopy, reflecting the structure of the forest as a whole.

The fossil record preserves this same fragmented leaf litter. Comparing the shapes of thousands of epidermal cells with the leaf area index we measured revealed a remarkably strong relationship: The more elongated the cells, the denser the forest canopy above them.

That relationship allowed us to reconstruct the structure of Wyoming’s forests millions of years ago and show how they changed over time.

When forests reach their limits

One of the most surprising discoveries was that the forests did not enter the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum in decline.

Just before rapid warming began, the forest canopies reached their greatest density in hundreds of thousands of years, likely reflecting favorable growing conditions as atmospheric carbon dioxide began to increase. A leading theory for the source of that carbon dioxide involves volcanic eruptions.

That flourishing forest did not last, however. As temperatures climbed, heat and drought overwhelmed the benefits of higher carbon dioxide levels. The canopy rapidly thinned as trees died, and it remained much thinner for over 100,000 years.

The forests functioned very differently in this diminished state, and that affected the surrounding environment. Ancient soils gave way to coarser river deposits, suggesting that the loss of canopy altered how water and sediment moved through the basin.

The changing climate changed the forest, and the forest changed the landscape.

Lessons for today

This sequence carries an important lesson for today.

Higher carbon dioxide levels like the world is experiencing now can stimulate plant growth, but only while temperatures and water remain within the limits that trees can tolerate.

Beyond those limits, heat, drought, insects, pathogens and wildfire can overwhelm any fertilization effect that would boost growth.

Around the world, many forests are already showing signs of diminishing as temperatures rise, in addition to deforestation for timber, crops and rangeland that further reduce their resilience.

Forests recovered, but it took over 100,000 years

The story of the ancient forests of 56 million years ago does not end with collapse.

Over time, the increased breaking down of rocks in the warmer climate, known as weathering, gradually pulled carbon from the air, storing it in marine sediments. That allowed the climate to cool and water to become more available.

Forest canopies recovered, eventually becoming even denser than before the warming began. As the forests expanded, they likely restored their ability to stabilize soils, regulate the water cycle and draw carbon from the atmosphere, helping reduce the greenhouse effect and boost the planet’s long-term recovery.

Our study shows that carbon dioxide emissions have pushed forests beyond their physiological limits before, triggering changes that ripple from vegetation to rivers and across entire landscapes. It also shows that forests are remarkably resilient when given time to recover, but what counts as time is far longer than a human lifespan – it requires thousands of generations.

Today, human-caused carbon emissions and warming are unfolding vastly faster than during the PETM. The fossil record reminds us that forests can recover, but only if humanity avoids pushing them beyond thresholds from which recovery takes tens of thousands of years.

Regan E. Dunn, Associate Curator at La Brea Tar Pits and Museum; Adjunct Professor of Earth Sciences, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

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The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has now spread from migratory birds to infect resident Australian birds. Clusters of dead birds have been found in several locations. The virus will inevitably infect other wildlife, most notably mammals.

Death rates range from 75-100% in poultry and some wild bird species. There’s great uncertainty about how big the death toll will be over both the short and long-term. Native species such as the black swan are highly vulnerable, while others may prove more resilient.

Based on overseas experience, we can expect many thousands, if not millions, of Australian birds, and large numbers of mammals, to perish. Poultry will likely become infected, while some beloved pets may die.

Overall, the populations of many Australian species will likely plummet. Some threatened species will move closer to extinction, and relatively safe species could become threatened. As the virus spreads through widespread species such as silver gulls, white ibis, pigeons, ducks and crows, many of us will be confronted by wildlife deaths close to home.

Facing a threat like this can make us feel powerless. But there are actions we can take.

Blow after blow for wildlife

Over the 2019-20 summer, megafires incinerated forests and wildlife. In 2025, the lethal South Australian algal bloom denuded large marine areas.

The prospect of yet another hammer blow to wildlife is haunting and emotionally triggering for conservationists, wildlife carers and people who love nature.

To date, the official messaging asks us to watch for, report and record sick birds and mammals. This is important, but it risks leaving the community feeling disempowered witnesses to catastrophe. The situation is far from hopeless. Now is the time to act.

What can be done?

Following overseas work on ways to reduce the toll, we have come up with eight actions.

1. Tackle other threats to give species a fighting chance

While federal, state and territory response plans are not public, what we do know suggests a focus on controlling threats other than bird flu, especially for species that are threatened.

For example, locally eradicating predators such as cats and foxes could give more individuals a chance to get through the first wave of bird flu. Banning duck hunting could also reduce one threat to wildlife.

2. Secure insurance populations

Threatened birds and mammals with populations in captivity provide some security. We can boost these insurance populations by increasing their genetic diversity and the number of individuals kept.

For at-risk species without these populations, we may have to collect wild animals before infection reaches them (where practical). Zoos may offer the most protection, but there’s scope to translocate species (such as northern quolls) to safer wild places.

3. Vaccinate species at risk

New Zealand authorities are already giving vaccines to birds at risk. To date, Australia is not doing so, though policymakers are exploring the option. Limited trials in mammals have been undertaken in the United States.

Wild animals have to be caught, given the vaccine, and recaptured for a booster 4-6 weeks later. This is challenging but often feasible. In the US, authorities captured and vaccinated endangered Californian condors, then released them back to the wild.

We need to explore new vaccines, especially for mammals.

4. Widen monitoring

We need good monitoring to track the spread, understand whether our efforts have helped and plan future actions. Monitoring will show what the virus has done to species, track viral mutations and assess survival rates.

For many seabirds and waterbirds, existing programs give us good estimates of current population size. This will let us estimate declines and any recoveries. But we don’t have robust estimates for other at-risk bird and mammal species. This gap needs to be rapidly filled with funding for targeted monitoring. Citizen scientists can also help.

5. Expand research

Much Australian fauna is very distinct from species overseas, meaning lessons learned elsewhere won’t necessarily apply. We need to know which species are most vulnerable, which species spread the virus most effectively, whether survivors have compromised immune systems and how much genetic diversity has been lost.

6. Slow the spread

The virus spreads rapidly in contaminated water and through the movements of infected birds and mammals. Even so, we can slow the spread. In some situations, authorities can remove sick or dead animals to reduce the chance of scavenging birds and animals eating them and contracting then spreading the virus.

Some areas may need to be closed to the public to reduce infection risks through disturbance or contamination. It may be necessary to shut down some water sources or make them less attractive to waterfowl, who are often good carriers of the virus. Poultry farmers will need to control water sources too, to avoid attracting infected birds.

7. Involve interested groups

Authorities must ensure community members, land-owners, First Nations groups and conservationists are involved in creating response plans. Bird flu is a shared problem. Governments cannot respond alone.

8. Look for some silver linings

This virus will likely have dire consequences for many species. But it could also kill introduced predators and scavengers such as feral pigs, cats, foxes and common mynahs.

Time to act

The damage this virus will do isn’t set. We can shape some outcomes. We believe this package of actions could help avert the worst future for Australian birds and mammals – and encourage their recovery.

Acknowledgements: Ecologist Tanya Loos provided helpful feedback.

John Woinarski, Professor of Conservation Biology, Charles Darwin University; Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, and Stephen Garnett, Professor of Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia has confirmed deadly H5N1 bird flu has been found in 102 wild seabirds across five states at the time of writing, including the country’s first mass death of birds.

The question is no longer if this virus can harm Australian wildlife, but whether we should use every available tool to protect species most at risk.

Vaccination cannot stop H5N1 spreading through wildlife. But it could prevent an outbreak from killing all of the at-risk species in an area – a tragic local extinction.

Australia should begin targeted vaccination of threatened birds. It should also urgently develop a strategy for seals and sea lions, rather than waiting until thousands are dead.

A policy exists, but action remains too cautious

Australia has a national policy that allows emergency vaccination of rare, protected and valuable birds, including animals in zoos, sanctuaries, breeding programs and some managed wild populations.

The government has also purchased an inactivated H5 vaccine – containing no live virus – and is running pilot studies in captive non-poultry birds.

This is important groundwork, but not yet a public program comparable with New Zealand’s ambitious and proactive approach to vaccinate five of the country’s rarest birds before the arrival of H5N1.

Australian zoos and sanctuaries have received funding to strengthen biosecurity and captive “insurance populations”. Pilot vaccinations are underway, but the government has not announced which threatened species will receive wider vaccination, where, or when.

More importantly, the policy excludes non-avian (bird) species, meaning marine mammals are not considered despite their known vulnerability to H5N1. No plans have been announced to the public for Australian vaccination trials for seals or sea lions.

What overseas programs show

New Zealand prepared before H5N1 arrived. After species-specific trials, it began vaccinating about 300 core breeding birds of rare species, including kākāpō, takahē and black stilts. These are captive or closely managed populations whose individuals can be found, vaccinated twice and monitored.

The United States acted after H5N1 killed 21 critically endangered California condors. By October 2024, 207 captive and free-flying condors had been vaccinated. The vaccine was judged safe, although two birds had treatable adverse reactions.

France has conducted a vaccine trial in wild king penguin chicks on the French sub-Antarctic island of Crozet. The vaccine produced strong, virus-neutralising antibodies without detected adverse effects.

These programs do not prove vaccination will prevent every infection. But it could lessen severe disease and reduce the number of animals that die in threatened populations.

Which species should Australia vaccinate?

Broadscale vaccination of free-ranging wildlife is unrealistic. Most H5 vaccines require two doses, and most wildlife is difficult to capture once, let alone being recaptured for a booster and blood test.

The best candidates are small populations of at-risk species that are either easily accessible or already under management. For example, threatened birds in zoos or breeding centres, or small, known colonies with tracking or regular handling.

On Tuesday, the Australian government released a list of at-risk species, that showed almost one-in-five Australian bird and mammal species is at high, very high or extreme risk from the virus.

Five bird species are at extreme risk – the Christmas Island frigate bird, Houtman albatross, Herald petrel, imperial shag on Heard Island and imperial shag on Macquarie Island. The marine mammals most at risk are the sea lion, fur seal and elephant seal, while the Tasmanian devil and eastern quoll are the highest risk species on land.

Decisions must balance extinction risk, exposure to the virus, cost, vaccine performance, whether enough animals can be reached, and whether capture would cause unacceptable stress. Vaccination must sit alongside existing biosecurity, surveillance and conservation measures – not replace them.

Australia needs a seal plan

H5N1 has decimated seal and sea lion populations across South America and the Southern Ocean. More than 17,000 southern elephant seal pups were killed in Argentina in 2023. An estimated 13,359 pups died at the Australian sub-Antarctic Heard Island in 2025, believed to be from the virus. Southern elephant seals were listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List in April, in part because of the catastrophic mortality caused by bird flu. It will take decades for these populations to recover.

Australia’s most vulnerable seals include the endangered Australian sea lion, Australian and long-nosed fur seals, and southern elephant seals. H5N1-positive terns have already been found at Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island, home to a major Australian sea lion breeding colony. Southern elephant seals have a large breeding colony on Australia’s sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island, which remains free of H5N1 at this time.

There is currently no bird flu vaccine designed specifically for marine mammals. A United States trial aimed at protecting endangered Hawaiian monk seals found a vaccine developed for cattle was safe in northern elephant seals and produced measurable antibodies.

This was the closest comparable species for which a safe, conditionally licensed vaccine was available. Developing and approving a separate vaccine for every wildlife species is costly and time-consuming, so conservation programs commonly adapt vaccines already approved for domestic animals.

Now is the time to act

Australia should identify priority seal colonies now, trial candidate vaccines in a suitable surrogate species and plan how vaccination could be deployed. We should not wait to learn how susceptible these animals are by watching more mass deaths unfold.

Vaccination is not a silver bullet. But when a disease can erase years of conservation work in weeks, we should not wait for perfect certainty. It’s time to act before catastrophe.

Jane Younger, Senior Lecturer in Southern Ocean Vertebrate Ecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia had years to prepare for the arrival of bird flu. The deadly, highly transmissible H5N1 strain emerged in late 2020 in Asia, before spreading to every other continent bar Australia.

After the first case was confirmed in Western Australia on June 19, federal Environment Minister Murray Watt claimed the nation was well prepared. Preparations include A$47 million of on-ground action such as improving habitat and controlling introduced species, as well as boosting surveillance. The virus is now spreading domestically, with mass mortality events being detected.

What the arrival of bird flu shows is how reliant conservation in Australia is on volunteers. Early on, the first people responding to sick birds were often volunteers and wildlife carers – even though authorities have consistently asked the public to “avoid, record and report” any sick or dead animals. Wildlife carers in Western Australia called for help and protective gear after finding themselves on the frontline. The WA government is now distributing PPE.

As the virus spreads, nursing sick birds and animals is no longer possible for volunteers. We will need these volunteers to report sightings and support injured wildlife. They will need support.

Why is Australia so reliant on volunteers?

Australia is wealthy and has a huge variety of species. Almost half the economy has a moderate to very high reliance on nature. But spending on conservation is very low.

There is no doubt that conservation is financially stretched in Australia. The Biodiversity Council estimates spending for on-ground programs is just 0.06% of the federal budget.

Because conservation has been underfunded for many years, much of the work has fallen to volunteers.

In 2019, researchers estimated Australia had over 20,000 volunteer wildlife carers, each of whom spend an average of $5,300 of their own money on food and equipment annually (about $100 million in total). On average, each volunteer put in 32 hours a week. If we were to pay minimum wage for their time, it would cost over $1 billion.

It was no surprise that volunteers would form a critical part of Australia’s response to bird flu, alongside official preparation.

In South Australia, not-for-profits and volunteers partnered with the state government to create a distributed surveillance network.

Australia’s largest wildlife carer organisation, WIRES, has mobilised its network of 4,000 volunteers nationally to focus on surveillance of sick animals.

What role do volunteers have?

Much of our wildlife care is conducted by volunteers, not-for-profit groups, or vets working pro bono, who are already “operating in crisis mode”.

There’s a clear gap between the official advice to avoid contact with any sick animal and Australia’s long reliance on volunteers to care for wildlife.

In July, volunteers spoke out over concerns this advice could mean many animals go untreated out of caution – even those who have injuries or other illness.

In New South Wales, the official advice is that injured birds or animals should still be reported to wildlife carers – but sick birds or animals should be recorded and reported.

Bird flu can infect humans in rare circumstances, but it doesn’t jump from person to person.

Regardless of the small risk, volunteers should not have to risk their health to care for animals.

Authorities must provide the life jacket

The bird flu crisis is yet another reason a big increase in conservation funding would make sense.

But that doesn’t mean turning away from the work done by thousands of passionate volunteers and wildlife carers. They provide scale which can’t be achieved by professionals alone.

It would make sense to be more strategic in supporting volunteers. Directing a small amount of funding to support coordination of volunteers is incredibly efficient compared to paying professionals.

The key is to match requirements with volunteer capability. Replacing professionals with citizen scientists is clearly the wrong approach. But volunteers can do many tasks that give vital, useful data in the fight against bird flu. When partnered with professional scientists, their effect can be much larger.

To use a metaphor, we wouldn’t have “citizen pilots”. But we do ask passengers to put on their own life jacket because it’s easy and the pilot can’t do it for everyone. Likewise, non-professionals can do specific tasks with the right support (we provide the life jacket, they put it on).

This article’s author is involved in the Great Reef Census, which relies on volunteers to collect an enormous amount of data from the Great Barrier Reef through a simple photo survey. It’s not a replacement for professional monitoring. But it gets results because scientists deliver the technical components, while the volunteers provide the scale scientists can’t.

Which way forward?

As the virus tightens its grip, experts are calling for an urgent funding boost to give wildlife a better chance of survival.

Boosting the official response is important. But we also need to ensure Australia’s volunteer workforce of citizen scientists and wildlife carers are supported.

Volunteers don’t have to keep showing up. They give their time to causes they care about. As our recent study found, keeping volunteer citizen scientists engaged needs recognition and ownership of the project.

Realistically, Australia’s sheer size means any bird flu surveillance program will rely on a distributed workforce of volunteers reporting sightings, while scientists focus on technical aspects such as genetic testing or biosecurity measures.

It makes clear sense to support these vital volunteers as a way to strengthen both wildlife conservation and national biosecurity.

Wildlife Health Australia has detailed advice on what to do if you see sick, dying or dead wildlife. You can report sick or dead animals via the official Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888.

Christopher Lawson, Research Fellow in Marine Ecology, The University of Queensland

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Australia is now confronting an outbreak of a deadly bird flu strain.

As of Monday, the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus had been detected in 78 wild birds across mainland Australia. Until now, there had been no evidence of a large-scale outbreak.

But authorities have confirmed the first instance of mass death caused by H5N1 among dozens of greater crested terns off South Australia’s south-east coast. They are also conducting further testing on a cluster of sick and dead terns in south-west Victoria.

As H5N1 spreads across the country, researchers, wildlife managers and the broader public are increasingly concerned about the risks it may pose beyond birds.

Recent outbreaks have threatened aquatic mammals, including southern otters, dolphins and porpoises. H5N1 has also decimated pinniped populations around the globe, including in South America. Pinnipeds are marine mammals that live in the sea and form colonies but spend extended periods on land, such as sea lions, fur seals and elephant seals.

As the risk of a broader outbreak rises, Australia must protect its wildlife by drawing on lessons from other continents already battling bird flu.

Looking to South America

H5N1 poses an urgent threat to wildlife worldwide. Since 2021, this fatal strain of bird flu has spread to every continent and infected poultry flocks, dairy cattle, wild birds and a growing range of wild mammals. In June, it finally reached Australia, first detected in a sick brown skua.

This strain has been particularly devastating in South America. In late 2022, H5N1 spread rapidly from infected seabirds into pinniped colonies. At least 30,000 South American sea lions died in Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil during the subsequent outbreak. In some areas, major breeding colonies lost up to one third of their population within a single breeding season.

Current evidence suggests H5N1 also caused mass deaths in southern elephant seals – the same species as Neil the seal – with more than 17,000 pups dying at Península Valdés in Argentina. Scientists still don’t know how many adults died.

Our team of researchers – from the Universidad Nacional del Comahue in Argentina and Deakin University in Australia – documented a dramatic decline in the number of seals in northern Patagonia following the 2022-23 outbreak.

Subsequent studies across South America show infected pinnipeds developed severe neurological and respiratory disease. Symptoms include lethargy, tremors, impaired coordination and laboured breathing, among others. Affected animals showed severe respiratory disease and neurological signs, and post-mortem examinations revealed marked lung lesions. Many animals died within a short period after clinical signs appeared.

Australian mammals at risk

Though confronting, the South American outbreak gives us crucial insight into how H5N1 spreads, which species may be most vulnerable and what strategies could reduce its impacts.

Each time H5N1 infects and replicates in a mammal, the virus becomes better at adapting to mammalian hosts. Monitoring how efficiently it spreads between mammals is therefore essential for protecting wildlife. It also allows us to assess the risk of human infection — which currently remains low — and the potential for a broader pandemic.

For now, H5N1 has not yet reached Australia’s pinniped colonies, which are already under pressure from fishery nets and hooks, pollution, habitat destruction and climate change.

So we still have time to protect them from H5N1. Authorities should start with Kangaroo Island, where infected seabirds have been found near the breeding habitat of the endangered Australian sea lion.

Other threatened marine mammals may also be vulnerable. This includes the rare Burrunan dolphin, of which there are less than 200 individual animals swimming around Victoria’s Port Phillip Bay and Gippsland regions.

So, how can we protect them?

As Australia’s number of confirmed H5N1 cases rises, urgent action is needed to protect our vulnerable marine mammals.

Australian authorities can learn from the South American outbreak by:

• frequently conducting population censuses, to detect unusual deaths and sudden changes in the size of seal and sea lion colonies

• closely monitoring live animals and taking samples of any dead animals, to track how the virus is circulating before any mass deaths happen

• removing all carcasses, particularly near tourist areas, to stop scavenging birds, dogs and animals from being exposed to infected animals

• ensuring researchers, wildlife managers and tourism operators stick to strict biosecurity protocols, such as wearing appropriate personal protective equipment when handling sick or dead wildlife and disinfecting boots and equipment between sites

• tightening biosecurity measures around food production, particularly intensive poultry farms where commercial poultry may be exposed to infected wild birds.

The public can also help protect our vulnerable pinnipeds by:

• not approaching any sick wildlife

• keeping pets away from wildlife

• reporting any sightings of sick or dead birds, seals, sea lions or other animals to the 24-hour Emergency Animal Disease Hotline by ringing 1800 675 888, noting details about the date, location, type and number of animals.

As the number of infected seabirds rises, so does the threat of a H5N1 outbreak among Australia’s marine mammal colonies. South America reveals how devastating this virus can be for entire ecosystems. Australia should heed that warning while there is still time to protect our precious pinnipeds.

Correction: This article originally stated post-mortem examinations of infected pinnipeds revealed the virus directly affected animals’ brains and lungs, and could lead to death within a short period. This has been corrected to say post-mortem examinations of infected pinnipeds revealed marked lung lesions, and many of them died within a short period after clinical signs appeared. Full necropsies were not carried out on the Argentinian seals due to biosecurity concerns, meaning the cause of death cannot be definitively attributed to the virus.

Saia Nahir Bartes, PhD Student and Research Teaching Fellow, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Lethal bird flu is now spreading in Australia. This is bad news for many native species.

New federal government analysis suggests close to one in five Australian bird and mammal species is at high, very high or extreme risk. But this risk assessment omits something vital – how genetically well-equipped the species is to fight the virus.

While species such as black swans are likely to be very hard-hit, others such as wild ducks are expected to be less affected. One reason for this is different immune systems – some are more or less able to fight the virus. But there’s a more significant factor – how much variation there is in key immune system genes across populations.

Right now, we don’t have an overview of which threatened species are at highest risk based on this. If we urgently create a national immune-risk map for species at risk, we can act to protect those in most danger.

Why immune gene variations matter

When a virus enters an animal’s body, its immune system must first detect it, then respond. Key immune genes help determine if an animal fights off infection, becomes seriously ill or dies.

Different individuals will have slightly different immune responses based on variations at different immune genes. Some variants will allow an individual to survive the virus, and others won’t. This is why diversity in these genes is critical across the species.

Large wildlife populations often have a wide array of variants at each immune gene. This acts as biological insurance – when a new disease arrives, some individuals will be more able to survive. But if a species becomes threatened and its population falls, it’s likely to lose much of this protective diversity.

If the remaining individuals share similar vulnerabilities, a lethal disease such as H5N1 bird flu could be enough to push the species closer to extinction.

Threatened species are often immunologically fragile

Australia’s wildlife faces threats such as habitat loss, climate change, invasive species, pollution and disease. These threats not only reduce population size – they erode genetic diversity.

Small, fragmented populations may have enough genetic diversity to look viable in the short term. But when a new disease arrives, they may lack the breadth of variation at the immune genes needed to survive the new disease. This is a large, hidden vulnerability.

The orange-bellied parrot is a species that worries us deeply. The small, migratory parrot is one of Australia’s most endangered birds. Just 86 birds are left in the wild, with a few hundred more in captive breeding populations.

Our previous research found the parrot has suffered a dramatic loss of genome-wide diversity over the past century – including variation in immune genes.

If H5N1 infects these parrots, they may lack the immune gene variants needed to buffer the species against severe disease.

Tasmanian devils are similarly at risk. These iconic marsupials have critically low immune gene diversity due to population bottlenecks over the past 5,000 years. This left them vulnerable to the contagious devil facial tumour disease, which saw populations plummet with local declines of 95%, and an estimated 80% decline across Tasmania since the disease arose in the 1990s. Our preprint research shows facial tumour disease is still eroding immune gene diversity.

These scavengers are likely to be exposed to bird flu by eating carcasses, and we know which devil populations eat seabirds. The question will be whether devils have enough immune variation to respond to H5N1.

How a national immune-risk map could help

While we know how some species are likely to respond to the virus, the picture is far from complete.

We could fill in the blanks quickly, using DNA samples held in museums or from animals in zoos to generate genomic data on many more species.

We could then analyse immune gene variation across different populations of each species to measure how diverse they are. This approach could reveal populations that have lost important immune variants and may be particularly vulnerable to bird flu.

The Threatened Species Initiative, has collected this data for more than 125 threatened species. But there are hundreds more threatened animal species for which we have no data and no samples.

If we worked quickly to create a national immune-risk map, wildlife managers could focus surveillance, vaccination and protection efforts on the populations likely to be at most risk.

Importantly, they could establish new captive populations before the virus arrives, using breeding programs to maximise immune fitness and keep inbreeding to a minimum.

This is not science fiction. We led immune-guided conservation work in Tasmanian devils, where data on immune genes shape decisions around breeding. The end result: devil joeys with stronger immune systems.

If we use this approach for more at-risk species, we could better protect wildlife from bird flu and future diseases.

No time to waste

Responses to wildlife diseases are often reactive. Animals start dying in large numbers and then we investigate. This approach will be much too slow to respond to the fast-moving H5N1 strain.

Australia has world-leading wildlife genomics expertise, valuable museum and zoo collections, threatened species recovery programs and growing genome resources.

What’s missing is a coordinated way to translate immune gene data into practical action.

It’s not too late. But we have to act fast to identify species and populations with low immune diversity and roll out measures before irreversible losses occur.

Katherine Belov, Professor of Comparative Genomics, University of Sydney and Carolyn Hogg, Professor of Biodiversity & Conservation and Co-Lead, Australasian Wildlife Genomics Group, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The spread of H5N1 birdflu is worsening.

At the time of writing, Australia has 53 confirmed detections in wild seabirds across five states. In South Australia there are 39 confirmed cases, including a silver gull at Robe and 19 greater crested terns found along the Limestone Coast and Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island.

South Australian authorities are also investigating 49 dead and 35 sick greater crested terns found by aerial surveillance teams at an offshore location south of Cape Jaffa.

Samples are still being tested, but if confirmed, this would represent the first mass mortality of Australian animals associated with the virus.

Until recently, Australia’s detections were mostly isolated migratory seabirds arriving from the Southern Ocean. But these detections show this has changed, with local transmission among wildlife that live in Australia.

Which species are most at risk?

Animals that gather densely in breeding colonies face the greatest danger. Terns, gulls, gannets and albatrosses can transmit the virus rapidly through close contact and contaminated environments, with these groups experiencing devastating mortality in other parts of the world.

The silver gull infections are particularly concerning because they move between beaches, towns, rubbish tips, wetlands and inland waterways. A suspected case at Monarto, SA, does not prove H5N1 is yet established inland, but it shows infected seabirds cannot be “coastally contained”.

Seals and sea lions also require urgent surveillance. H5N1 killed more than 17,000 southern elephant seals in Argentina in 2023, with 95% pup mortality at one monitored colony. Around 13,000 elephant seal pups later died on Heard Island. While it was not possible to carry out postmortem examinations on all individuals at this remote location, H5N1 was confirmed as present and recorded as the most likely cause of death.

Five infected terns have now been confirmed at Seal Bay, a critical breeding site for the endangered Australian sea lion. Australian sea lions and fur seals breed in dense colonies where disease could spread quickly.

Can we predict how far it will spread?

We cannot reliably predict the spread of H5N1 in Australia. The 53 confirmed detections are not the true number of infections – they are the birds found, reported and tested. Many infected animals will never be detected.

Cases from the rest of the world show this strain of H5N1 is capable of spreading huge distances, carried by migratory wildlife. Every other continent, including Antarctica, has been infected by this strain of H5N1 over the past five years, with deaths in the millions.

Hundreds of species of birds have been infected, and the virus has evolved to spread more efficiently between mammals. This pattern makes it very difficult to confidently predict how the virus will spread in Australia, but we must be prepared for a widespread and devastating outbreak.

What about poultry farms and backyard chooks?

There are still no detections of H5N1 in Australian poultry or other livestock, but the risk has increased as confirmed infections rise among resident wild birds.

Wild birds can introduce influenza to poultry through direct contact or by contaminating water, feed, footwear and equipment.

Backyard owners should prevent contact with wild birds, cover feed and water, avoid untreated surface water, and clean footwear and equipment. Sudden illness or deaths should be reported immediately.

Australia’s response now needs to evolve

Sadly, the impacts of bird flu on species and ecosystems will play out for decades to come.

Australia’s pre-outbreak preparation and coordination has been strong. Federal and state governments established response plans, increased surveillance and prepared the poultry industry before H5N1 arrived.

As wild bird infections increase, the poultry industry needs to be supported in implementing biosecurity procedures, and strategic surveillance is needed for both farms and wildlife.

Reliable mortality estimates are essential to understand the long-term impacts, and support species to recover. Australia should also assess whether vaccination could protect vulnerable marine mammals before mass deaths begin.

We cannot stop wild birds from flying. But we can decide whether this becomes an unmanaged wildlife catastrophe or a closely tracked outbreak, with farms and vulnerable species given timely protection.

Please do not touch sick or dead birds or marine mammals. Record the location, take photographs from a safe distance, keep pets away, and report the sighting to the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888.

Jane Younger, Senior Lecturer in Southern Ocean Vertebrate Ecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia’s unique animal species are in sharp decline, with more than 40 mammal extinctions over the past 238 years. This atrocious mammal conservation record is the worst in the world.

Unfortunately, this is not simply a historic problem – almost 700 animals are currently at risk of future extinction. At least 200 of these are directly threatened by feral cats, as well as other pressures such as land-clearing, disease and invasive species.

Feral, domestic and stray cats now occupy almost the entire continent and are estimated to kill more than 1.5 billion native animals each year. These estimates are based on more than 100 cat diet studies, which identified prey animals using the traditional scientific methods of examining stomach contents and scats (droppings).

However, our new research – the first in Australia to use DNA for cat stomach analysis – shows traditional methods may greatly underestimate the true number of native animals killed by feral cats.

Stomachs, scat or DNA?

Scientists traditionally study the diet of predators such as feral cats by manually looking through their stomach contents or scat samples. Searching for hair, bones, feathers or other partial remains is an unpleasant task that can help identify a cat’s prey.

However, the bodies of animals rapidly degrade within a cat’s digestive system, and it can be difficult to identify small prey fragments. In fact, more than 50% of prey can be unidentifiable, and this only includes the remnants still visible to the naked eye.

We were curious to find out whether small or soft-bodied species, such as microbats and birds, were being missed by these traditional methods. Other research has shown soft-bodied New Zealand frogs were detected more often when DNA analysis was used on the contents of mammal stomachs. So we decided to analyse stomach contents, rather than scats, to increase the likelihood of detecting smaller or soft species.

We used both manual and DNA metabarcoding, a forensic method that allows scientists to detect even tiny remains of animals that have been eaten by predators. All organisms have a unique genetic “barcode” that can be identified from certain regions of their DNA.

These two methods were used to analyse the stomach contents of cats that had been culled around Wild Deserts, a fenced conservation reserve in New South Wales. This is the first time DNA methods have been applied to cat diet studies in Australia, and one of few globally.

The results were sobering: DNA detection identified twice as many mammal species and three times as many bird species as traditional manual detection. But it was less effective for certain reptiles.

In summary, more species were detected, and were found within more cats. This means they are being consumed at a higher rate than traditional methods estimated.

Interestingly, we did not detect any microbats, in line with previous research at these sites. This might be because cats generally eat rodents and other small mammals, and eating bats is likely a sporadic event. But we know cats are a threat to bats in other regions.

DNA findings emphasise cat threat

Building predator-free fenced reserves known as safe havens, is one way conservationists have tried to slow the extinction and severe declines of many Australian wildlife species. These reserves allow us to remove species such as cats, foxes and rabbits, enabling native species to thrive in pre-colonial conditions.

Projects such as Arid Recovery, Wild Deserts, Secret Rocks, and several others managed by conservation organisations such as Australian Wildlife Conservancy and NSW National Parks, have successfully returned species that were locally extinct to their former homes.

However, we cannot fence the whole of Australia. Therefore, we need to know which species are most at risk from cats so resources can be directed to protect them. Unfortunately, it is often the rarest and most threatened species that are of greatest risk from cats, such as small mammals. Due to their scarcity, they are difficult to detect.

Ironically, scientists have relied on cat diet analysis to confirm if very rare species are persisting (or not) in an area, and DNA methods could increase the confidence of these results.

Exciting next steps

More recently, these projects have begun releasing native animals beyond the fences into areas where cats have been suppressed to low numbers. As we move into this exciting next stage of rewilding Australia, it is vital we know how many of these pioneer animals are eaten by cats. Yet traditional methods may not detect them.

Our research complements decades of work by individuals and organisations that have monitored the effects of invasive predators, including cats, on Australian ecosystems. It is important to incorporate this local expert knowledge with DNA analyses.

Traditional manual methods remain a practical, cost-effective approach to routine dietary analysis. However, using DNA methods alongside these techniques will help us better understand and estimate the impacts of cats and other invasive predators.

Oliver Aylen, PhD candidate, UNSW ; Katherine Moseby, Professor of Conservation Biology, UNSW ; Kylie M. Cairns, Research Fellow in Canid and Wildlife Genomics, UNSW , and Rebecca West, Principal Ecologist Wild Deserts, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Nature is not doing well in Australia. Many unique mammals, birds and insects are struggling. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.

In response, the federal government signed a global pledge in 2022 to protect and restore nature. The global goal is to restore 30% of degraded ecosystems. But Australia only proposes to have “priority degraded areas […] under effective restoration by 2030”. The terms are not defined, no 30% target is included, and there is no method proposed to measure success.

With 2030 less than four years away, it’s time to ask hard questions. What does it actually mean to restore nature? What would success look like? And what would it cost?

What does it mean to restore nature?

If we walk through protected forests with abundant wildlife, we might think the end goal is simple: more of this.

The problem is, many current ecosystems – communities of species – look very different to those before European colonisation began in 1788. Some ecosystems no longer exist.

The tireless burrowing of millions of bandicoots and bettongs once shaped the grassy woodlands of southeast Australia. But foxes and cats, coupled with logging, farming and mining, have largely put an end to their work as ecosystem engineers.

Regent honeyeaters were once seen in “immense flocks” in eucalypt forests. There are now less than 300 birds left – so few they are losing their song.

Oyster reefs once carpeted southern seas so densely colonial ships struggled to navigate them. But the reefs were quickly dredged to near-extinction and now exist only in fragments.

It’s hard to judge the health of nature when so much has been lost. This is known as shifting baseline syndrome – each new generation will see nature’s current level of degradation as normal.

Remembering what was lost

Gone from living memory doesn’t mean gone for good. The historic record is richer than most people realise.

For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders managed Country using fire and selective harvesting, based on an intimate knowledge of seasonal cycles and species behaviour that Western science is only beginning to appreciate.

Much of this stewardship has been encoded in language, ceremony and oral tradition and passed down. This is how we know millions of bogong moths once gathered in alpine areas to cluster on cave walls and enter a low-energy state over the hot summer. Their migration once supported the gathering of many nations for ceremony.

Early colonial journals, field guides, fisheries ledgers and ship logs describe a different continent. In the upper Murray River, diaries from explorers Hume and Hovell describe abundant Murray cod, and lagoons “literally crowded with wild ducks”.

Fossils such as bone fragments left by owls over thousands of years also help us envisage earlier ecosystems.

It’s useful to reconstruct what Australian ecosystems once looked like. But this work offers reference points for nature restoration, not goals.

In some cases, we cannot recreate the lost ecosystems of 1788. Today’s climate is already very different to that of 238 years ago and climatic change is intensifying. Introduced species have also altered many ecosystems irrevocably.

It’s also false to assume ecosystems are static – they never were. Australia’s ecosystems have been managed by people for tens of thousands of years.

A better goal would be to strive for biodiverse, functional ecosystems, informed by past conditions and practices. We should focus on what we value most about landscapes, rather than solely focusing on recreating the past.

Restoration must be about whole ecosystems

Restoring biodiversity requires working at landscape scale to reintroduce cultural burning, manage invasive species, replant and reseed vegetation, give rivers more water, keep livestock numbers sustainable, connect remaining areas of habitat and bring back species once found in an area.

The high profile Gondwana Link in Western Australia shows how restoration requires linking fragments of habitat so animals and plants can better move through the landscape as well as invasive species control and returning traditional fire regimes.

Hard choices are necessary

Over the last 12 years, the amount of protected land has almost doubled. The problem is, this growth has largely not been in areas where it matters most.

There’s been less growth in important areas closer to population centres, which are home to threatened and culturally important species. Unfortunately, the most threatened places are often sought after for farming or development.

We need to honestly acknowledge this tension, rather than pretending we can restore Australia’s ecosystems using marginal or abandoned land.

Policymakers will need to make difficult choices. If an ecosystem is almost gone, those last precious remnants need protection – even if they could be turned into farms or suburbs.

How much is enough?

The global target is to restore 30% of degraded ecosystems. But Australia hasn’t announced a numerical target.

The nation has 418 million hectares of land modified enough to be considered “degraded”, according to a new CSIRO dataset. If Australia aimed to restore 30%, that would mean 125 million hectares. This is a concrete target – the kind that means we will know if we meet it or not.

If policymakers set this as a target, they would need to carefully decide which areas are chosen. The good news: we know how to prioritise restoration.

Is it possible?

Restoring nature faces real obstacles. But it is possible.

Aiming to restore 30% of degraded land would mean working across private lands, public reserves and the Indigenous estate. It would likely take decades and come with a substantial price tag. Our ballpark figure is a little over A$7 billion a year over 30 years.

That’s less than a third of what the federal government spends subsidising activities which damage nature annually.

The shifting baseline means it’s hard to see what has been lost. But most of Australia’s native species still exist. The knowledge is there. And we know restoration at scale is possible.

Michelle Ward, Lecturer, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University; Brendan Wintle, Professor in Conservation Science, School of Ecosystem and Forest Science, The University of Melbourne; Jack Pascoe, Senior Lecturer, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne; James Watson, Professor in Conservation Science, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland, and Martine Maron, Professor of Environmental Management, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Mangroves are perplexing plants.

They breathe through their roots, appear to stand on stilts and grow best in hot, salty seawater drawn in and out by the tide.

Historically, mangrove forests have been dismissed as inhospitable places to avoid and have been extensively cleared. But these fascinating trees are now gaining attention for how they support biodiversity, store carbon and buffer the effects of storms, cyclones and tsunamis.

Since 1984, scientists have been monitoring the growth and geographical reach of mangrove forests using satellites. And for the first time, these unique ecosystems are expanding at a faster rate than they are declining.

So what’s driving this? And could it help curb climate change?

Why mangroves matter

Mangrove forests were long viewed as largely expendable places. Research shows people were quick to convert them into rice paddies, oil palm plantations and aquaculture operations. Some were even used as rubbish tips.

However, mangrove forests are now recognised as a vital part of our coastal environments. They provide habitat for a wealth of plants and animals including fish such as barramundi and giant shovelnose rays, reptiles such as seasnakes and even mammals such as the proboscis monkey and water mouse. They are crucial carbon stores, locking up roughly four times more carbon than other land-based forests. Mangroves can also shelter coastal communities and ecosystems from natural disasters by reducing the risk of flooding and erosion.

From an economic perspective, mangrove forests allow millions of fishers to earn a living as well as supporting commercial fisheries. These forests are also of immense cultural value to First Nations communities, many of which associate mangroves with certain religious gods or cultural practices.

Mangroves are bouncing back

For decades, mangrove forests have been systematically cleared and destroyed. Between the 1980s and 2010, we lost more than 12,000 square kilometres – an area the size of Jamaica – of mangroves worldwide. That means there are far fewer mangroves that can trap harmful greenhouse gas emissions and slow the effects of climate change.

However, this trend may be reversing. A recent study analysed four decades of global data documenting the reach and growth of mangroves. It had three key – and somewhat surprising – findings.

Mangroves are rebounding despite climate change

Human-induced climate change is putting immense pressure on our mangrove forests. It is driving more severe and frequent droughts and storms that can damage or kill mangroves. It is also accelerating sea level rise, potentially drowning mangroves.

This study shows the world’s mangrove forests are rebounding, even as our planet rapidly warms. Since 2010, they have expanded by more than 2,000 square kilometres.

Importantly, the reasons for this vary between regions. Before 2010, Myanmar and Indonesia were hot-spots of mangrove loss. But this trend has now stabilised, with policymakers strengthening the laws around mangrove protection following the catastrophic 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and 2008 cyclone Nargis.

Australia’s mangrove forests are also expanding. However, research suggests this is because mangroves are increasingly growing on floodplains. Rising sea levels allow tides to reach further inland, creating the salty conditions in which mangroves thrive.

In some places – such as where mangroves regenerate in unused aquaculture ponds – this shift inland is positive. In northern Australia, however, it threatens to degrade freshwater ecosystems and is an urgent concern for Traditional Owners.

Mangroves are shifting closer to the sea

This new study suggests mangroves are increasingly growing on newly formed mud flats.

This is counter intuitive because rising sea levels should, in theory, restrict mangrove growth. It may be happening because rivers are carrying soil and sand from deforested areas to the coast, creating new habitat for mangroves.

This demonstrates the resilience of mangrove ecosystems. However, it seems mangroves aren’t regenerating rapidly in the coastal regions where they once thrived – an indicator of successful restoration.

Mangroves are expanding and retreating at the same time

The authors of this study also examined trends in mangrove degradation.

Degradation occurs when mangrove canopies become less dense – a sign they are not as healthy as before. The researchers point to human activities, such as harvesting or pollution, and extreme weather as the main factors driving mangrove degradation.

However, exact causes will differ between regions.

More work needed

The expansion of the world’s mangrove forests is promising – and perhaps unexpected – news. However, we can’t be complacent. Current evidence suggests mangrove forests are still thinning overall, putting coastal ecosystems and climate action efforts at risk.

To combat this trend of mangrove degradation, we should support policies that strengthen mangrove protection and restoration.

Organisations such as the Global Mangrove Alliance and Mangrove Breakthrough are also raising the profile of these fascinating ecosystems.

Further research is needed to monitor the varying impacts of climate change on mangroves.

Catherine Lovelock, Professor of Biology, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

During the most recent ice age, much of North America disappeared beneath ice sheets several kilometres thick. These frozen giants covered most of present-day Canada and parts of the northern United States, while smaller ones spread across northern Europe.

They dominated the landscape for thousands of years, storing so much water that global sea levels fell dramatically.

Scientists have long known these enormous ice sheets transformed the climate of the northern hemisphere. They shifted North Atlantic storms southward and influenced rainfall across Europe.

But what if these mountains of ice influenced climate much farther away than anyone realised? Could they have altered climate on the other side of the world?

In our new study, published in Climate of the Past, we show they could, despite the ice never reaching Australia. The discovery reveals just how interconnected Earth’s climate really is. It also reminds us that understanding Australia’s past and future climate requires looking far beyond our shores.

A world that looked different

Our study focuses on a climate about 49,000 years ago during the last ice age when the world looked very different from today.

The giant ice sheets in North America were not yet as large as when they reached their peak around 21,000 years ago, but they were already large enough to influence climate far beyond their edges.

At the same time, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were very low, and changes in Earth’s orbit altered how sunlight was distributed across the planet compared with today.

Building ice sheets of this size required enormous amounts of water. As more water from the oceans became locked away as ice on land, sea levels fell by around 60 metres, exposing underwater landscapes.

Coastlines stretched much farther out than they do today. Australia and New Guinea were joined into a single landmass called Sahul, while many islands across Southeast Asia merged into another large landmass called Sunda.

But the ice sheets did much more than reshape coastlines.

Their bright surfaces reflected more sunlight back into space, cooling the planet. They also stood several kilometres high, forming gigantic walls of ice that disrupted the normal paths of winds moving around the globe.

Imagine placing a mountain range thousands of kilometres wide in the path of the atmosphere. Air cannot simply flow straight through it. Instead, it is forced around the obstacle, creating ripple effects that spread far beyond it. The North American ice sheets behaved much like a continent-sized mountain range.

Looking beyond the North Atlantic

While the regional effects of the northern hemisphere ice sheets across Europe and the North Atlantic are now well established, much less was known about whether the influence of the ice sheets extended far beyond the North Atlantic.

Could ice sheets in North America also influence rainfall in Australia?

To answer this question, we used a series of climate model experiments. Instead of changing everything at once, we sequentially altered atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, Earth’s orbital configuration (the position and orientation of Earth relative to the Sun), ice-sheet albedo (how much sunlight they reflected), and ice-sheet elevation.

This approach allowed us to identify which factor was responsible for different climate changes.

The height of the ice sheets reshaped global winds

While orbital conditions helped create a wetter Australian climate, one result stood out. The bright white ice helped cool the climate by reflecting sunlight back into space.

But it was the height of the North American ice sheets that produced the biggest changes in atmospheric circulation.

Their towering walls of ice redirected winds across the globe. Those changes rippled through the atmosphere into the tropics, shifting the tropical rainfall belt southward and strengthening the circulation that drives Australia’s summer monsoon.

This southward shift also reduced rainfall in parts of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, while increasing summer rainfall across much of Australia.

A connected system

The past provides one of the best natural experiments available for understanding how Earth’s climate system works. These results show that changes in one part of the world can trigger responses thousands of kilometres away through the atmosphere.

As atmospheric greenhouse gases continue to rise and major changes are projected to occur at high northern latitudes, understanding how these changes influence the southern hemisphere will become increasingly important.

The giant ice sheets that once covered North America never reached Australia. Yet their influence did. They altered Australia’s rainfall, helped shape the landscapes inhabited by the continent’s earliest people some 60,000 years ago, and reminded us that Earth’s climate has always worked as one connected system. What happens in one part of the world can echo far beyond its borders.

Himadri Saini, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Climate Dynamics, The University of Melbourne; UNSW and Laurie Menviel, Associate Professor, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Imagine spotting a butterfly species in your garden you have never seen before. You might take a photo and upload it to a citizen science app, or tell a local nature group about your new encounter. It feels like a small moment of joy.

But if that butterfly has appeared in your backyard because its old home is becoming too hot, too dry or too damaged, the sighting is more worrying.

Around the world, ongoing environmental changes are prompting many butterfly species to relocate and search for new homes, a process referred to as species range shifts or species redistribution. As temperatures, rainfall and habitats change, butterflies can relocate over long distances, or even move vertically up and down mountain ranges.

Our new global study found one in ten known butterfly species has already shifted in range. So, where are they going – and why?

How do we know butterflies are on the move?

The data used in our global study was comprehensive: more than 6,180 reports of butterfly range shift from 565 studies and 68 expert assessments, which covered 1,758 species across 105 countries.

These showed 80% of the documented butterfly species had expanded their ranges latitudinally, meaning north to south, or longitudinally, meaning east to west. We found 27% had reduced their range and 22% had shifted up or down slopes on hills or mountains. Many species showed a combination of these range changes.

The public narrative is often simplistic: as the world warms, species are shifting towards cooler temperatures at higher latitudes, or moving upwards in mountains. This is happening, but it is only one piece of the puzzle.

In fact, butterflies need more than to find new homes at the right temperature. Caterpillars often depend on specific host plants; adults need nectar, shelter and safe places to breed; and populations also require connected habitats so individuals can move easily through the landscape, meet, reproduce and breed.

Change can come quickly

Some species show how fast changes can happen. The tawny coster (Acraea terpsicore) native to the Indian subcontinent, has expanded through Southeast Asia and into Australia. In Brazil, (Godartiana byses) has expanded from Rio de Janeiro and Bahia into São Paulo, a shift linked to climate warming.

Other species show the opposite pattern. The small blue (Cupido minimus) has lost 40% of its habitat in the United Kingdom over the past 150 years. In Germany, the cranberry fritillary (Boloria aquilonaris) has lost much of its original habitat because of bog drainage. In Romania, an increase in farming has been linked to a severe range contraction of the danube clouded yellow (Colias myrmidone).

Even range shifts along mountain slopes are not always straightforward. In Mexico, the painted lady (Vanessa cardui) shifted upslope at a rate of about 83 metres per year between 1988 and 2011. Over the same period, the queen butterfly (Danaus gilippus) shifted downslope at a rate of about 32m per year.

Together, these examples show butterfly species range shifts are not simply a story of animals moving towards the poles.

What’s causing this change?

In our study, climate change and extreme weather events were the most common reasons why butterflies shifted their range. But climate change is not the only factor. Agriculture, forestry, urban development and habitat destruction are also reshaping where butterflies can live and reproduce. These disturbances destroy host plants and breeding sites, and fragment large habitats into patches too small to sustain a healthy population.

Europe and North America have many long-term butterfly monitoring programs, run by expert volunteers and citizen scientists. We found that in some European countries, range shifts have been documented for more than half the national butterfly species. But in most countries, records exist for fewer than 10% of known butterfly species.

We know the least about butterflies in Central Africa, Southeast Asia, New Guinea and the Amazon Basin, some of the richest places on Earth for biodiversity. They are also places where many species may already live close to their upper thermal limits. Even small increases in temperature can make parts of their habitat unsuitable.

Supporting experts and volunteers to develop citizen science monitoring programs would better protect butterflies in these megadiverse countries.

Why this matters

Why should people care? Butterflies are part of the living fabric around us. Adult butterflies contribute to pollination. Caterpillars feed birds, spiders and other insects. When butterflies disappear, it can signal the plants, grasslands or woodlands once visited by butterflies are also changing.

This matters for conservation. Many protected areas are based on maps of where species lived in the past. But if butterflies and other species are moving, those maps quickly become outdated.

The message is simple. Conservation cannot only protect habitats where species once lived – it must include the places where they will relocate, and the wildlife corridors they will use to get there. If not, we may keep protecting yesterday’s nature while tomorrow’s nature has nowhere left to go.

Shawan Chowdhury, Head of Global Change Ecology Lab, Monash University; Aletta Bonn, Head of Department Biodiversity and People, Professor of Ecosystem Services, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ; German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research; Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, and Jonathan Lenoir, Senior Researcher in Ecology & Biostatistics (CNRS), Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, can be devastating.

ALS is the most common form of motor neurone disease, a neurodegenerative condition that affects people’s ability to speak, eat, breathe and swallow. It is debilitating and progresses rapidly: on average, people survive just 2–3 years after a diagnosis. Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 40 and 70.

A new study, published today, has found that being exposed to pesticide at work can increase the risk of developing ALS by 61–71%. The study brings together the findings of eight other studies – but not all of them assess risk in the same way. Here’s why we need to interpret the findings with caution.

What we know about ALS causes

Men are around 20% more likely to develop ALS than women.

The disease occurs sporadically in over 90% of patients, meaning the large majority have no known family history or identified genetic cause. The remaining 10% of cases are familial, meaning the person has a known genetic variant or family history of ALS.

However, it’s not well understood exactly what triggers both the sporadic and familial forms of the disease, although an interaction between genes and environment is likely.

Over the last few decades, researchers have been investigating exposure to pesticides as a possible trigger.

Several studies have found associations between being exposed to pesticides and a higher risk of developing ALS. However, a causal relationship has not been established.

What the new study did and what it found

This new study pooled data from eight separate studies, five from the United States, one spanning Canada and France, one from Italy, and one from Australia.

It asked a simple but important question: does having ever being exposed to pesticides at work raise someone’s risk of developing ALS?

The answer, based on this combined analysis, was yes.

Overall, people who had ever had any exposure to pesticides (including fungicides, herbicides and insecticides) at work were 61% more likely to develop ALS, compared to those who hadn’t.

Pesticide exposure appears more strongly linked to ALS risk in men than in women in this analysis. But the evidence is too limited to know whether this reflects a true biological difference, or gaps in how exposure was measured for women.

The risk was slightly higher with exposure to herbicides (a type of pesticide), which was associated with a 71% heightened risk of developing ALS.

ALS affects an estimated 8 in every 100,000 Australians. So a 61–71% increase would mean a small number of new cases.

But these numbers don’t reflect how devastating and debilitating this disease is for families and communities affected by ALS. There is currently no cure.

But here’s why we should be cautious

This review was able to assess the link between pesticide and ALS in a large sample, by combining 1,734 ALS cases across the eight studies. This is more than any single study could provide alone.

But combining studies in this way inevitably introduces some inconsistencies, as each one has been conducted independently, using different methods. So it’s hard to control for the differences.

Several of the studies in the review found a link between developing ALS and other separate risk factors, such as head trauma or being exposed to other kinds of toxins. But the analysis couldn’t fully disentangle these risk factors from pesticide exposure. This means we can’t tell how much someone’s exposure to pesticide contributed to them later developing ALS, or whether it was due to the other contributing factors too.

One study also assessed military veterans exposed to Agent Orange, a herbicide the US used as a weapon during the Vietnam war. This kind of exposure is likely quite different to typical occupational pesticide exposure today. But the new review didn’t assess this separately.

Most of the included studies also relied on self-reported exposure, meaning participants had to recall and estimate how much pesticide they’d likely been exposed to. These studies tended to show a stronger link between pesticides and ALS than studies that independently measured exposure.

As the authors of the new study noted, this means recall bias may have played a role. People who already have ALS, or who already suspect a link between pesticides and the disease, may be more likely to remember and report being exposed to pesticides.

So, what does this all mean?

Overall, the study supports the case that being exposed to pesticide at work increases your risk of developing ALS.

These findings highlight the need for more rigorous research into the specific details. We need to understand which chemicals or pesticide ingredients may be responsible, and whether the risk is related to dose. This means understanding whether being exposed to pesticides over a longer time, or at a higher dose, might further increase your risk.

Someone’s risk of developing ALS is likely influenced by a combination of factors, including genetics and environment.

The way multiple exposures to risk factors accumulate and interact over a person’s lifetime may also play a role; for example, if you work with pesticides every day and have also been exposed to other toxins, had a severe head injury and/or a have genetic predisposition.

This is known as a “multistep” model of disease development and it isn’t currently possible to determine someone’s personal risk profile with precision.

The picture is still evolving. More evidence will help regulators and employers make better decisions about safe exposure levels and potential risk mitigation strategies.

Rachel Tan, Associate Professor in Neuroscience, The Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Snakes are seemingly simple in structure, a head attached to a long unremarkable noodle. They do have some pretty cool features at the front end, with venomous fangs and the capability to stretch their mouths and swallow large prey whole, but their bodies are not just the simple tubes we once thought.

My new research, published today in the Journal of Morphology, reveals their body structure to be surprisingly complex – far more than we once thought. In fact, it shows snakes have among the most complex spines in reptiles.

Let’s talk about vertebrae

Let’s first talk about vertebral columns. Within our own spines, we have three main regions.

First is the cervical region, or neck, which supports our heads and gives us mobility to look around. Next is the thoracic region, with ribbed vertebrae to protect our internal organs. Finally, we have the lumbar region in the lower region, whose main function is to support our upper bodies.

Within each region, the vertebrae have distinct shapes based on the functions they serve, and we can see this in a host of different animals.

When it comes to snakes, however, the story becomes a bit more complicated. Snake vertebrae similarly change shape throughout the column, but the boundaries between these regions aren’t as clear-cut.

This led to a lot of early research concluding that snakes just had one big long body, with a uniform gradient of change throughout.

But this was not the consensus, and debates raged until a seminal paper in Nature came out in 2015.

It found snakes do in fact have regions – four, in fact: the cervical, anterior thoracic, posterior thoracic and lumbar regions.

However, a decade on, my findings change a few things.

Snakes have short necks

Colleagues and I took three Australian snake species: the eastern brown snake, copperhead and tiger snake.

We measured the shape of every single body vertebra in 13 snake specimens. By quantifying each vertebra’s shape, we can study how it changes along the body.

What we found is not a uniform gradient of change, but rather some areas of rapid change and some areas without. This corroborates that snakes do in fact have regions within their bodies, where there are sections of vertebrae that have a similar regional shape, then a rapid transition zone into the shape of another region.

By looking at this much detail, we found five regions within a snake’s body – not four. We also found that snake necks are shorter than once thought. While previous research thought of the neck as long, up to 15% of the body, we show it’s more likely to be around 5% of body length.

This means snake necks are around 7 to 12 vertebrae long, similar to their lizard cousins. This suggests that while snakes elongated other parts of their body, their necks retained a more ancestral form, remaining short throughout evolution.

Changes reflect ecology

We also found a previously undescribed region, which we are calling the middle thoracic region, as it’s nestled in between the anterior and posterior and thoracic regions.

This finding contributes to an emerging theory, where limbless animals have undergone shifts in their vertebral columns. Basically, if you don’t have any limbs, the only way for you to adapt to your environment is by changing your entire body.

Overall, we see how snakes retain ancestral regions within their vertebral columns despite limb loss and elongation. But they have also gone further, repatterning their vertebral columns to be even more complex than their limbed counterparts.

Ammresh, PhD Candidate, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Every summer, communities across northern Australia brace for the tropical cyclone season. Tropical cyclones draw their power from the warm seas, extracting heat and moisture from ocean water.

To improve cyclone forecasting – and better protect lives and property – we enlisted an unlikely ally: deep-diving sea turtles equipped with oceanographic sensors on their shells.

At times these turtles have encountered powerful tropical cyclones, allowing their sensors to gather and can gather critical information on how the temperature in the water changes as the storm passes overhead.

How oceans affect cyclones

Tropical cyclones are fuelled by warm tropical seas. Higher sea surface temperatures usually generate more powerful storms.

As a cyclone passes over the ocean, its powerful winds and waves churn the water around like a blender. This action mixes warm surface water with cooler water from deeper down, leaving behind a “cool wake” – colder ocean water left behind on the sea surface. This cooling reduces the heat available to the storm, which can in turn can limit its strength.

Traditionally, cyclone forecasters have focused on sea surface temperatures, but the ocean depths also matter. If cooler water sits just below the surface, a storm can rapidly cool the sea surface by mixing it upwards. But if warm water extends deeper down, the mixing does not have the same cooling effect. This means forecast accuracy is highly dependent on the ocean temperatures below the waves.

Observing northern seas

Despite the key role northern Australian seas play in shaping tropical cyclones, we have surprisingly few observations below the surface. The region, which includes the Timor and Arafura seas between Australia and Indonesia, is vast, remote, and shallow.

This makes it difficult or expensive to use traditional ocean observation methods. Ships and underwater ocean gliders can only sample small areas, and nobody wants to collect measurements in the middle of a cyclone.

Australia needs an ocean observing system that can work in all weathers in this region. Following a collaboration between the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the Integrated Marine Observing System, CSIRO and Macquarie University, the University of Western Australia, UNSW and traditional owners, we think we’ve found one.

Turtle power: how it works

To address the data desert to Australia’s north, we have enlisted the help of deep-diving olive ridley and flatback sea turtles, which lay their eggs on beaches around tropical Australia.

Biologists have tracked sea turtles for decades using miniaturised GPS tags. Building on experience from overseas, we paired a GPS tracker with an oceanographic probe that measures temperature when the turtle dives, sometimes as deep as 80 metres.

The temperature data is transmitted almost immediately by satellite, making it available to forecasters in near real time. Over several deployments on 46 animals between 2014 to 2024, the turtles took more than 8,000 ocean temperature snapshots across northern Australia, from the Pilbara to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Into the maelstrom

In April 2023, a tropical storm formed off the Kimberley coast. This storm, named Ilsa, would go on to become a Category 5 cyclone and register the Bureau of Meteorology’s fastest-ever recorded sustained winds: 219 kilometres an hour. Tragically, two fishing vessels were caught in the storm, and eight people died.

As Ilsa was drawing energy from the warm Timor Sea, it passed directly over one of our turtles carrying ocean instruments. This reptile, seemingly unbothered by the maelstrom above, collected sub-surface observations within the eye of the storm – before, during, after the storm’s passage.

From the turtle observations, we found Ilsa’s cold wake cooled the ocean surface by about 2°C. Had the storm stayed still, this cooling would have potentially reduced Ilsa’s strength from category five to category 4.

Excited by this result, we matched turtle observations with the Bureau of Meteorology’s historical storm database. Our turtles had taken real time observations within the core of five tropical cyclones, including the category four Cyclone Rusty. In all but one case, turtles observed strong cooling of the ocean as the storm passed overhead.

When we compared the turtle data with a state-of-the-art ocean model, we found a potential weakness in Australia’s weather forecasts. Our turtle observations indicated the ocean model did not capture the mixing of deeper, cool water with the warm surface, the very process that causes the cold wake. This can lead to overestimates of cyclone intensity.

Sentinel turtles

To improve tropical cyclone forecasts, we need reliable sub-surface ocean observations.

But ocean observation is expensive and developing an all-weather observing system is beyond the capabilities of many of the nations most vulnerable to tropical storms.

The instruments we used can be deployed on land with minimal equipment, and the Olive Ridley turtle lives in tropical seas. Sea turtles could become a key part of observing cyclone weather systems, protecting lives and livelihoods across the tropics.

Christopher Chapman, Senior lecturer in oceanography, UNSW ; Clive McMahon, IMOS Animal Tagging, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, and Rob Harcourt, Emeritus Professor of Marine Ecology, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

At first glance it looks exactly like a seahorse. It has the same horse-shaped head tilted down from the body, the same curled and grasping tail, and in the males a fully enclosed pouch for brooding the young.

But this little fish, no longer than your thumb, is not a seahorse, as we report in our new study published in the Journal of Lost Species. This is Australyichthys aegis, a newly described fish from the deep reefs off southern Australia. We have given it the common name helmethead sea muppet, after the domed, helmet-like crest on its head.

Its scientific name follows the same idea: in Greek mythology the aegis was a protective shield. Together with its two relatives, the bullneck sea muppet (A. minotaur) and the paradoxical sea muppet (A. paradoxus), it makes up a small group we nickname the sea muppets.

All three, we have now shown, belong on their own branch of the family tree. The seahorse look has arisen more than once, and these fish are a case of it evolving well away from the true seahorses. That evidence had been sitting in museum drawers, misfiled, for decades.

Bycatch from the deep

You will not find these fish while scuba diving.

Every known specimen was brought up by accident, caught in trawl nets or dredges working the seafloor between about 50 and 125 metres down. The single specimen of A. aegis came up in 2006 near the Gambier Islands, at the mouth of South Australia’s Spencer Gulf.

The dredge that caught it was sampling for small shelled animals known as brachiopods during a natural history expedition. Because that expedition was after invertebrates, the fish was mistakenly catalogued into the invertebrate collection of the South Australian Museum, where it sat unrecognised for years.

After each chance capture the fish were preserved, then largely forgotten. The rest are held in Australian museum collections, among them the Australian Museum, Museums Victoria and CSIRO.

The whole genus is known from just seven specimens gathered over about 65 years, scattered across more than 2,500 kilometres of coastline, and nothing has been collected in nearly two decades.

Irreplaceable specimens

The specimens are irreplaceable, so we could not dissect them. Instead we used micro-CT scanning, the same X-ray technology used in hospitals but fine enough to resolve tiny bones.

That let us build three-dimensional models of each fish’s skeleton and compare them bone by bone with true seahorses (Hippocampus).

Every earlier assessment had rested on external appearance, and the skeletons did not support it. Seahorses have a particular internal architecture, including a rigid cage of fused bony plates supporting the belly and a bony crown, called a coronet, on the head.

Our scans showed that Australyichthys has neither. In their place is a different arrangement of bones supporting the belly, one that appears in no seahorse.

Only one specimen could give us DNA.

A. aegis had been fixed in ethanol rather than formalin, the only member of the genus stored that way, and ethanol leaves genetic material intact. Sequencing it placed the fish well outside the seahorses, on the branch that is their closest relative. The genes said what the bones had already said.

All three species had been placed in the seahorse genus on the strength of how they look, and on that evidence they were seahorses. They are not, and they needed a genus of their own. We named it Australyichthys, from the Latin for southern and the Greek for fish.

A shared way of life

When separate lineages evolve to look alike, biologists call it convergent evolution, and it usually reflects a shared way of life rather than shared ancestry.

The whole seahorse body, with its bent head, gripping tail and brood pouch, has been built at least twice within a single fish family, the Syngnathidae, which includes seahorses, pipefishes, pipehorses and seadragons.

Working out how that happened may reveal why evolution keeps arriving at the same solution.

All this happened along the Great Southern Reef, the connected system of kelp forests and rocky reefs that rings southern Australia. Many of its species are found nowhere else, and its deeper zones are barely explored.

In fact, an entire genus of vertebrate hid there, misidentified, until a CT scanner settled the question.

No one has ever seen one of these fish alive; they have turned up only by chance in a passing net or dredge. On that record they now qualify as lost species, known from a handful of preserved animals and never from a living one.

Calling them lost is not a prediction of extinction. It marks them as a priority for targeted surveys that go looking rather than waiting for the next accidental catch. They are most likely still down there, in a part of the sea we hardly ever visit.

Graham Short, Research Associate in Ichthyology, Australian Museum and David Harasti, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

I love my garden mulch and I love the way birds forage in it.

I love the mess this causes, and I love periodically using my broom and rake to return some order to things. To me, this meditative, cyclical interaction with nature is at the heart of gardening.

However, some of us want a very neat, formal garden and feel untidy mulch out of place will not do. For some, those pesky birds that turn over the mulch are more curse than blessing.

There’s a product on the market to meet such needs: mulch glue, sometimes also known as landscape glue. This is essentially a glue you can spray onto mulch to keep it in place.

So, what do you need to know before using it?

The magic of mulch

Good mulch works wonders. It can:

• improve soil and facilitate plant growth
• aerate soil and keep it moist
• deliver vital organic matter and nutrients to soil, benefiting microbiota.

There are many different types of organic mulch, including, pea straw, sugarcane, pine bark, softwood chips, hardwood chips and various mixtures. Inorganic mulches, such as pebbles, can help reduce weeds, slow down soil surface water evaporation and even provide habitat for a few small invertebrates.

Whatever you use, mulch works best when air, water, fungi, bacteria and insects can work their way through it. Your garden, after all, is a living thing.

Mulch glue is a non-toxic water based adhesive made from either acrylic or urethane polymers. It is sprayed over mulch to keep it in place.

The glue allows water and air to penetrate into the soil. But – depending on how much you use – it might limit birds turning over and foraging in mulch.

This is a shame because bird foraging helps aerate soils and gardens, which is a boon for soil micro-oroganisms and insects. Birds help by adding manure to gardens, which gets worked in among other organic matter when birds forage.

Landscape glues are UV-light stable so persist for a long time; some people have flagged concerns that as they degrade, plastic particles can enter waterways and drains.

While studies on mulch glue are scarce, there are concerns it might affect worms and other small soil organisms indirectly by slowing mulch decomposition.

Embracing the chaos

Overall, there’s very little peer-reviewed research on mulch glue.

It can be useful in some contexts. In some cases, an initial application on sloped sites may be beneficial, allowing mulch to settle. And it might be helpful for older people or those with limited mobility who can’t always be returning mulch to its original spot.

That said, there’s a chance it could reduce the ability of birds to turn over mulch, and act as environmental engineers. It may inhibit the activities of worms, fungi and insects that contribute to soil structure and fertility. The movement of material around your garden – whether that’s via birds, rain or wind – is part of a natural and positive process.

It’s also worth thinking about the fact that mulch glues (and related products such as mulch dyes) come at an environmental cost. Their manufacture, packaging and transport takes energy and resources, so their use must be justified.

In the longer term, I reckon it’s best just to let the birds forage in your mulch – and embrace a little bit of chaos in the garden.

Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How healthy are Australia’s ecosystems? To answer that, scientists need data. But Australia is huge – and the number of professional scientists is limited. That’s where citizen science can help.

Every winter, thousands of grey nomads take to the roads and head north. Families return to familiar campgrounds for school holidays. Bushwalkers move through forests and along coastlines. School students catch invertebrates in rivers to learn about waterway health.

Each of these groups – and many more – can collect data vital to conservation efforts. When a citizen scientist uploads a photo of a flower, frog or animal to a central repository such as iNaturalist and eBird, anyone can see it and the location, date and time it was observed.

Citizen science – public participation and collaboration in scientific research – is coming of age. Increasingly, professional scientists are partnering with citizen scientists – and making requests.

Australia faces rapid biodiversity loss, shifting species distributions and widespread ecological change. To respond, scientists and authorities need long-term, standardised monitoring. Professional scientists cannot achieve this alone. No wonder former Chief Scientist Ian Chubb called for grey nomads and others to lend a hand.

No longer a novelty

Old debates over the accuracy and reliability of the data are being drowned out by mounting evidence showing citizen scientists are providing high-quality information.

One of the most valuable things citizen scientists can do is make repeated observations of specific species at specific locations to complement national-scale monitoring. The best data comes from monitoring one location over time using consistent methods and posting data to public databases.

Here are three examples where professional and citizen scientists are working together.

Spotting rare orchids

More than 1,800 species of orchid grow in Australia – and many are found only here.

These remarkable flowering plants make up about 10% of the country’s plant species. Many are threatened by expansion of farming and urban areas.

One challenge for scientists is to understand where species are growing and correctly classify them. Many native orchid species look similar. If a rare species is classified as a common one, it could put the rare species at risk.

This is where initiatives such as Wild Orchid Watch come in.

When citizen scientists spot an orchid, they take photos and record details of when and where it was sighted. Orchid observations are repeated over time and species identifications are verified by ecologists in the iNaturalist platform. Citizen scientists also collect data on orchid numbers and time of flowering.

For regular orchid-spotter Adrian Uren, the process is rewarding. As he has written:

The challenge of finding these little jewels in the bush definitely appeals to me and it’s very rewarding when I find a new species or a spectacular patch of them.

Tracking threatened species

TERN Australia is the national ecosystem observatory. Scientists record changes to land ecosystems over time using field monitoring across 16 intensively monitored sites and more than 1,000 1-hectare plots around the country.

Despite these monitoring efforts, there are gaps in the data – both in place and time. Citizen scientists are helping fill these gaps by providing data from places, times and local scales not feasible for scientists to reach.

The Threatened Species Index commenced in 2016 as a way to track the abundance of Australia’s species in trouble. It relies heavily on thousands of citizen scientists, who collect species data consistently.

Without their work, we wouldn’t know threatened species populations have fallen almost 60% since 2000 – or that there are recent signs of improvement for some groups, though more long-term data is needed to confirm recovery. The Australian government now uses data from the index to evaluate conservation initiatives and report biodiversity trends.

Tracking the algal bloom

In March 2025, thousands of sea creatures started washing up dead on South Australian beaches. Underwater footage showed swathes of dead and dying marine life. The culprit turned out to be a mix of tiny, dangerous Karenia algae species. The bloom hasn’t completely disappeared, and has killed millions of marine animals.

As the devastation unfolded, citizen scientists responded by posting data and images of affected species to iNaturalist and responding to requests for help from scientists and organisations such as OzFish. The result was a living repository of data helping track the spread.

Calling for reinforcements

Scientists, authorities and regulators are requesting more and more support from the public.

Increasingly, we’re seeing requests for data on specific plants, animals and fungi. There are broader requests too, such as data on ecosystems or environmental disasters, from hard-to-reach locations or during critical seasonal windows.

Examples include: FrogWatch SA, Fungi for Function, Waterwatch Victoria, Waterwatch ACT, Ocean Connect, MangroveWatch, Coastsnap, eBird and Where? Where? Wedgie!.

For some citizen scientists, a big drawcard is being able to interact with experts to identify species. Projects co-designed by professional and citizen scientists are likely to become more popular.

There’s more work to be done to link popular citizen science apps with national databases such as the Atlas of Living Australia and TERN’s Data Discovery Portal – and ensuring data is recorded in useful ways.

The more citizen scientists, the better. When enough interested people get outdoors with a smartphone, they can collect vital data and help authorities respond to environmental changes.

Katie Irvine, TERN Surveillance Communication Lead, Adelaide University and Ben Sparrow, Associate Professor and Director - TERN Ecosystem Surveillance, Adelaide University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Every year, billions of migratory birds connect the world’s continents, oceans and ecosystems as they undertake epic journeys between their foraging habitats and their breeding grounds.

A bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) leaves its breeding grasslands of North America for the Pampas of South America. A Newell’s shearwater (Puffinus newelli) spends months soaring across the North Pacific before returning to the Hawaiian Islands to breed. A spoon-billed sandpiper (Calidris pygmaea) travels from Arctic Russia to the rapidly disappearing tidal mudflats of Southeast Asia for its nonbreeding season.

These birds could hardly be more different. They occupy different habitats, follow different migratory routes and face different threats. Yet they share one remarkable characteristic: Their survival depends on networks of habitats stretching across thousands of miles and multiple countries.

Today, all three species and many others are in trouble. Their migrations remain among nature’s greatest spectacles, but the birds themselves are increasingly at risk as the habitats and ecological connections they depend upon are lost or degraded and threats to their survival and ability to reproduce increase.

We study migratory birds as scientists. With an international group of colleagues, we just published a comprehensive assessment of the status, threats and conservation efforts involving more than 3,380 of Earth’s migratory bird species.

The results are sobering. We found that more than half of the world’s migratory bird species are declining because of an array of threats, including habitat loss, invasive species that harm birds, collisions with buildings, hunting, the pet trade, toxic pesticides and, in some cases, being caught in commercial fishing nets.

But our study offers a second conclusion with more hope. The science around migratory birds has changed dramatically over the past two decades, and conservation can help save these incredible species – if governments act before they become endangered.

Protecting birds across their epic journeys

If migratory bird conservation is refocused on the birds’ full annual cycles, it can protect birds and their habitats throughout the year, from their breeding grounds to their nonbreeding homes and their migratory routes in between.

This approach combines protecting and restoring important places, reducing threats wherever they occur. It also relies on international cooperation and proactive conservation led by engaged governments before species become endangered.

Migratory birds are far more than remarkable travelers. They pollinate plants, disperse seeds, control agricultural pests, transport nutrients between ecosystems and support local economies by drawing birdwatchers and ecotourism. Their declines are not simply a loss of biodiversity; they signal a growing breakdown in ecosystems that sustain both wildlife and people.

The encouraging news is that humans have never been better equipped to reverse these species’ declines.

Miniature tracking devices, genetics, automated radio telemetry networks, long-term monitoring and citizen-science initiatives such as eBird that document species numbers around the world have transformed knowledge of migratory birds’ habits and the risks they face.

For the first time, scientists can follow individual birds across continents and determine where conservation actions will have the greatest impact.

A new strategy

For much of the past century, migratory bird conservation focused on protecting important places, such as the breeding grounds, wetlands, nonbreeding habitats and migration stopover sites birds depend upon.

That strategy has been enormously successful and remains indispensable. Protected areas have prevented countless extinctions and will continue to be a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation.

But research has revealed something equally important: Protecting places, while essential, is often not enough to conserve species whose lives unfold across continents and oceans. It’s also important to understand where and when populations are most at risk and address those constraints across the birds’ entire annual cycle.

The three species that opened this story illustrate why.

Bobolinks breed across North American grasslands but spend much of the year in South America. Conserving breeding habitat alone cannot reverse their declines if grasslands continue to disappear or if birds are poisoned by pesticides.

Newell’s shearwaters spend most of their lives over the Pacific Ocean but return to Hawaii to breed, where artificial lights, collisions with power lines, and introduced predators such as domestic cats threaten already vulnerable populations.

Critically endangered spoon-billed sandpipers depend on a shrinking network of tidal mudflats that serve as stopover sites between their breeding grounds on Russia’s Chukotka Peninsula and their nonbreeding areas in Southeast Asia. Losing even a handful of these staging areas can jeopardize one of the world’s rarest migratory birds.

Each species requires a different conservation strategy, but all require the same way of thinking: conserving their entire annual cycle rather than focusing on a single place, season or threat.

Fortunately, this approach is already starting to take hold in the United States and demonstrates what is possible.

What success can look like

Road to Recovery is an international initiative designed to reverse the losses of North America’s fastest-declining bird species before they require protection under U.S. endangered species legislation.

Rather than waiting for populations to collapse, Road to Recovery brings together scientists, governments, conservation organizations, landowners and local communities to form species working groups. These groups help identify the harms bird populations are facing and how to be more surgical in where limited conservation dollars are invested.

Today, more than 50 international working groups are developing conservation strategies for species including bobolinks and lesser yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) to evening grosbeaks (Coccothraustes vespertinus) and yellow-billed cuckoos (Coccyzus americanus). Their work has already led to new research, habitat protection, policy changes, hunting reforms and international partnerships.

International agreements such as the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, along with regional flyway partnerships and treaties, provide ways for nations to work together to conserve migratory species across political boundaries.

However, the convention’s effectiveness is severely hindered when many of the world’s largest, wealthiest and most influential countries have not signed on to it. That includes the United States, Canada, Mexico, Russia and Japan.

Broader international participation and sustained investment from governments can help translate scientific knowledge into coordinated conservation action across the full annual cycle.

But governments cannot do it alone. Landowners, businesses, conservation organizations and individuals all have roles to play. They can help protect and restore habitat and reduce threats, such as free-ranging cats and collisions with buildings. They can support bird-friendly policies and participate in citizen-science programs that help track migratory bird populations.

Applying these lessons

There is every reason for hope.

Around the world, conservation initiatives repeatedly demonstrate that when threats are identified and addressed, bird populations recover. The pesticide DDT almost caused the extinction of species such as the bald eagle, peregrine falcon and osprey, but humans stepped in, banned its use, and all species recovered.

The challenge now is applying what science has found.

Next spring, bobolinks will once again return to North America’s grasslands. Newell’s shearwaters will navigate thousands of miles of open ocean back to Hawaii. Spoon-billed sandpipers will once again attempt one of the world’s most extraordinary migrations.

Whether future generations can continue to see these magnificent migrations will depend on the choices of current generations and the steps they take to save them.

Peter P. Marra, Dean of The Earth Commons, Professor of Biology and the Environment, Georgetown University and Nathan W. Cooper, Research Ecologist, Smithsonian Institution

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scuba diving is often presented as a success story for marine ecotourism.

Each year millions of people dive beneath the surface to experience coral reefs first-hand. Scuba diving generates income for coastal communities and helps people understand why coral reefs matter.

But that success also brings a conservation challenge. It brings tourists into direct contact with sensitive coral ecosystems, where a misplaced fin, hand or camera can add to the stresses reefs already face. At a time when reefs are severely threatened, understanding how divers might help, or harm, those ecosystems has never been more important.

Between us, we have spent thousands of hours underwater as both dive professionals and marine scientists. In this time, we realised something uncomfortable: even people who admire and value coral reefs can unintentionally contribute to their decline through their actions underwater.

That observation led us to ask a simple question: how much impact are divers actually having on coral reefs underwater – and do they realise it?

For our research, we followed hundreds of recreational scuba divers, carefully documenting their behaviour underwater. We then surveyed those same divers afterwards to compare what they thought they had done, with what had actually happened.

We spent hundreds of hours following, observing, and surveying 732 scuba divers across world-famous dive destinations in Indonesia and the Philippines. We recorded every time a diver touched the reef and what was happening at that moment. The results surprised us.

Divers touched or hit the reef, on average, about once every four minutes. More than 40% of those contacts caused visible damage, including broken corals or sediment deposited onto living coral. Perhaps most striking, we found that most damaging contacts were accidental and often went entirely unnoticed.

Divers in our study also expressed strong environmental values, and many saw themselves as better than average at controlling buoyancy and avoiding reef contact. At least 69% of divers responding to our survey rated themselves “above average” in their ability to avoid intentional reef contacts, and 86% as “above average” in their ability to avoid accidental contacts.

But when we compared their survey responses with our underwater observations, divers underestimated how often they contacted the reef by almost fivefold. The divers making the most contacts also tended to be the most overconfident about their underwater performance.

This pattern is consistent with the Dunning-Kruger effect, a well-established psychological phenomenon in which people with lower skill levels are often least able to recognise their own limitations. For coral reefs, this creates a conservation problem: people may not change their behaviour if they do not realise they are part of the problem.

Influenced by others

Underwater behaviour was also surprisingly social. When one diver hit or touched the reef, nearby divers became more likely to do the same. This is an example of social contagion, where people unconsciously take behavioural cues from those around them. Underwater, the actions of other divers can subtly reshape what feels acceptable creating social norms that may be detrimental to coral reef ecosystems.

Seeing sharks, turtles, manta rays or other charismatic species, increased the likelihood of intentional, unintentional and damaging reef contacts. In other words, the moments that often inspire people to value coral reefs might also be the same moments in which those reefs are most vulnerable.

This means dive sites famous for abundant marine life require particularly careful management. Smaller group size and appropriate viewing distances could help reduce impacts, especially during peak encounter periods. Instructors and dive guides also have a crucial role to play, by modelling good behaviour and reminding divers that the best way to enjoy marine life is with space and respect.

The encouraging message is that effects of scuba diving on coral reefs are not inevitable. Better buoyancy training, clearer pre-dive briefings, post-dive feedback and stronger guide leadership could all help reduce reef contact. Equipment also matters. We found that the use of accessories such as underwater cameras, muck sticks (rods used by divers to stabilise themselves) and gloves was associated with more frequent reef contacts.

Some coral reef dive locations have implemented conservation rules restricting these items, although such measures can be unpopular within the diving community.

Eco-certification schemes that take a broader look at the impact of scuba diving and sustainability also offer a promising route for change. In our study, Green Fins certification (an international initiative to promote responsible marine tourism) was linked to fewer intentional reef contacts, particularly among higher-performing dive centres.

But certification alone is unlikely to solve the problem unless it helps create a wider shift in expectations across the industry. Understanding the psychology behind how people act underwater may be one of the most effective ways to help ensure that reef tourism supports conservation and helps relieve pressures on fragile ecosystems.

Ronan Roche, Lecturer, School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University and Bing Lin, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Thriving Oceans Research Hub, School of Geosciences, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In late June, whale watchers in southwest Western Australia sounded the alarm. They had seen far fewer humpback whales at a time when they normally migrate up from the Southern Ocean to calve and feed. Numbers were 60% below normal.

A week later, birdwatchers spotted a “once in a lifetime event” as large numbers of rarely seen albatrosses and petrels appeared off Australia’s east coast, thousands of kilometres from their usual foraging grounds deep in the Southern Ocean. Many birds were in poor condition.

The sightings came just weeks after a dying migratory seabird was confirmed as Australia’s first case of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu.

These sightings raise troubling questions. Seabirds and marine mammals such as whales use ocean currents and weather to travel long distances to feeding and breeding grounds. If these species are changing their behaviour, it could be a sign of altered conditions in the Southern Ocean.

We know the world’s oceans are running very hot. Marine heatwaves can affect any part of the ocean – even frigid Antarctic regions. If species are used to water temperatures around 2–6°C, a sudden boost of a couple of degrees can upend ecosystems. If the heatwave lingers, the cumulative effect can be much bigger.

We don’t yet know for sure, as monitoring in the Southern Ocean is limited. But we know marine heatwaves can alter currents, weather conditions and prey availability.

Oceans running hot

Since February, a large and persistent marine heatwave has affected waters around Australia’s Heard Island and McDonald Islands, stretching as far south as the edge of Antartica’s sea ice. These remote islands are extraordinarily rich in life. But researchers have found their waters are exposed to damage from climate change.

The southern Tasman Sea has also endured a marine heatwave since at least April, likely due to the fact we are coming out of successive La Niñas.

Both areas of ocean are among the fastest-warming on the planet. The steady drumbeat of climate change can make marine heatwaves more severe, more frequent and longer-lasting.

It’s possible this marine heatwave is putting pressure on seabird and whale food supply. But there remain significant gaps in our knowledge.

One reason is that extreme events don’t occur very often. Given this, it’s worth looking at past events.

Devastation from ‘the Blob’

Between 2014 and 2016, the North Pacific Ocean was hit by an event scarier than any monster movie.

A huge, long-lasting and extreme marine heatwave stayed in place for many months. It became known as “the Blob”.

Water temperatures were between 2°C and 6°C above normal. While this may not seem like a drastic change, it led to widespread ecosystem disruption. At least 240 species were found outside their normal ranges – some further north than ever recorded.

It’s hard to overstate how extensive its effects were. Kelp forests disappeared. Millions of starfish dissolved into goo. Whales died. Seabirds starved. Toxic algal blooms appeared.

It’s possible reported falls in whale numbers and unusual sightings of seabirds might be linked to a smaller version of the Blob in the cold Southern Ocean.

We already know marine heatwaves can disrupt the feeding behaviour of marine predators such as little penguins in Tasmania.

Our research has shown marine heatwaves lead to significant shifts in the types of zooplankton – tiny floating animals – found in coastal seas off Tasmania. Zooplankton are important food sources for seabirds, whales and fish.

As early as 1997–98, researchers found warmer surface waters in the Southern Ocean made it harder for female Antarctic fur seals to find prey while raising their pups.

Deaths of pups and adults are becoming more common in the South Atlantic. The population has fallen by around 1.5 million in the 15 years to 2022. The species was once considered abundant. But it’s now has recently listed as endangered.

We don’t know what we don’t know

By studying past events, scientists now have a better understanding of how marine ecosystems respond to extreme events.

Even so, there’s a lot we don’t know. For example, we have strong evidence climate change is affecting Antarctic krill. But we still don’t fully understand how a particular marine heatwave affects these tiny crustaceans or how ocean predators such as whales and seabirds respond during such events.

In short, our knowledge of how extreme events affect ecosystems isn’t keeping pace with climate change.

For scientists to understand how vulnerable species respond to environmental triggers, we need to monitor key species over the long term, while tracking environmental conditions in breeding and foraging areas and their food sources.

This type of monitoring is expensive, time-consuming and challenging. It would require national coordination, international collaboration and sustained support. But if we want to understand what’s driving ecosystem changes affecting local and migratory species in our waters, it will be necessary.

Once up and running, these dynamic monitoring systems would help authorities respond quickly by, say, reducing or redirecting fishing boats if there’s a sudden drop in fish numbers. Monitoring would also show areas in need of better protection.

We know changes are taking place in these cold oceans. Fewer whales and rare seabird sightings are a warning sign. If we don’t have better monitoring, we will keep flying blind as global warming accelerates.

Mary-Anne Lea, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in Marine/Polar Predator Ecology, University of Tasmania and Christopher Chapman, Senior Lecturer in Oceanography, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In the Torres Strait, sea levels are rising twice as fast as the global average.

Scientists predict several low-lying islands in the Torres Strait will be uninhabitable by 2050 if global warming continues on its current trajectory.

In 2021, two Torres Strait Islander elders, Uncle Pabai Pabai and Uncle Paul Kabai, filed the first-ever negligence case against the Australian government claiming failure to protect them from the damage done by climate change.

Both live on islands at direct risk from rising seas. Uncle Pabai lives on Boigu Island, whose highest point is just three metres above sea level. Uncle Paul lives on Saibai Island, which tops out at 1.7 metres. They claimed they would suffer cultural loss if forced to leave their island homes due to climate change, which would sever over 40,000 years of connection to Country.

The case was heard by a Federal Court judge, who found the government had no duty of care.

Late last year, the elders from the Guda Maluyligal nation filed an appeal. Australia’s full Federal Court will hear the appeal this week. If successful, the case could lead to the Australian government having to pay compensation for the loss of culture due to climate harms.

What was in the Federal Court decision?

In his findings on the Pabai case, Federal Court Justice Michael Wigney found the government didn’t have a duty of care.

Justice Wigney said setting emissions reductions targets is a core policy decision which lay beyond the court’s remit. He found it wasn’t open to him as a single judge to recognise loss of culture under negligence law for the first time.

However, the decision recognised the Torres Strait Islands and their inhabitants are “undoubtedly far more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than other communities in Australia”.

The court also found the government failed to take the best available science into account when setting emissions targets in 2015, 2020 and 2021.

What does this appeal rest on?

Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul appealed to the full Federal Court, meaning a panel of three justices will hear the case.

Their lawyer, Brett Spiegel, told the ABC the appeal would ask the full court to “take steps that the trial judge felt he was unable to.”

Uncles Pabai and Paul are arguing the government owes a duty of care to Torres Strait Islanders to take reasonable steps to protect them from the impacts of climate change. To date, this link has not been recognised in Australian law. Duty of care cases often focus on the legal responsibility of authorities or employers to avoid foreseeable harm to other people.

The Uncles claim the government breached this duty of care by failing to set emissions reductions targets in line with the best available science to keep warming below 1.5°C.

They say the government voluntarily signed the Paris Agreement, which outlines the 1.5°C target, and set domestic emissions cut targets as part of this. As such, the Uncles claim it’s appropriate for the court to review these actions.

In their written submissions, lawyers for the government argue the case involves core government policy, so it would be inappropriate for the court to find a duty of care due to the separation of powers. Even if government emissions reductions targets contributed to climate impacts in the Torres Strait, they argue the contribution is too small to be measurable. This would mean the government is not negligent.

Uncles Pabai and Paul will say the science is clear that all greenhouse gas emissions worsen global warming, and the government’s lack of action on emissions made a material contribution to climate change harms in the Torres Strait.

How can climate change threaten culture?

Uncles Pabai and Paul are concerned about losing their ability to practise their culture, known as Ailan Kastom (Island Custom). This includes cultural ceremonies, teaching culture, burying and mourning rituals and caring for sacred sites.

During the original case, Uncle Pabai gave evidence about the uninhabited sacred island of Warul Kawa, visited for millennia for hunting, fishing and ceremonies. If the island was lost, Uncle Pabai said Torres Strait Islanders would:

[lose] our spiritual connection to the ancestors […] It would be like losing our version of heaven.

At the appeal, the Uncles will argue the government has contributed to climate impacts on their islands and that it is liable in negligence for Torres Strait Islanders losing their ability to practise culture.

The government’s lawyers will argue losing Ailan Kastom is not compensable under negligence law.

Can the law address climate change?

It may be surprising to hear this appeal is effectively asking the full Federal Court to find a new type of duty of care and a new type of compensation for cultural loss.

But Australian law can and does evolve to address new challenges. The seminal Mabo case brought by Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo led to the recognition of land rights for Indigenous peoples.

Courts overseas have found governments have a duty of care to protect their people from climate change harms.

The appeal will be watched closely. Australia’s efforts on climate change are already under scrutiny as it prepares for its role leading negotiations at the COP31 United Nations climate talks in Turkey this year. Neighbouring Pacific Island nations face similar threats from sea level rise.

As climate damage worsens, we can expect to see more legal cases focused on the obligations of governments to keep their citizens safe from climate harms.

Maria Nawaz, Project Lead, Australian Climate Accountability Project at the UNSW Australian Human Rights Institute, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Since South Australia’s toxic algal bloom started to kill millions of marine organisms in March 2025, the media has been filled with images of dead and suffering coasts, plants and animals.

There have been countless reports of people experiencing health effects and pets suffering symptoms, from wheezing to gastrointestinal problems.

The bloom has been described by First Nations communities as “a profound cultural wound”. And it has continued for more than a year, ebbing and flowing in severity.

Even if people in SA avoid the beach, it is impossible to avoid the violence of the bloom. Distressing images are everywhere on social media and news feeds, with stories emphasising death, damage and human powerlessness. While there’s no easy fix for the bloom itself, addressing this unnecessary suffering is possible.

How media covers death and destruction in nature

This year, the ABC broadcast two investigations with upsetting content. One was about women’s health and the other an ecological disaster. Both episodes featured multiple scientific experts and tackled distressing material. One gave good warnings about upsetting content. The other did not. Comparing them illuminates an opportunity for positive change.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners program aired Scarred, about medicine and women’s safety, in February. It released Toxic Tide, on the algal bloom, in March. These investigations reflected an inconsistent approach to audience safety.

The reporting in Scarred aligned closely with established ABC editorial policies and Australian Press Council guidelines. The episode opened with an explicit content warning, empowered victims and closed with support information, directing viewers to services.

The visual content throughout Scarred was reasonably neutral, focused on people, buildings, blurred scans, and mundane scenes such as a surgeon washing their hands.

This approach reflects a broader awareness: repeat exposure to traumatic events — visual or spoken — can trigger further harm.

Trauma awareness takes decades to build and formalise into practice. In the case of women’s safety, conversations in the early 2000s led to research and, eventually, an Australian Press Council Guideline in 2023.

The reporting in Toxic Tide was starkly different. Despite distressing content that included videos of dead and suffering animals and coastal ecosystems, there were no warnings. There was no support information at the conclusion of the report, and the episode ended pessimistically.

This approach isn’t unique to adult audiences. The Behind the News episode about the algal bloom, for audiences aged 8–13 years, followed a similar pattern. It presented ecosystem death and suffering without warning or support. It did conclude, at least, with hope.

How could media do it better?

Australian media professionals today have access to policies such as the Australian Press Council’s advisory on reporting family and domestic violence and the Mindframe national guidelines on safe reporting about mental health concerns.

These documents emphasise minimising harm, using language and imagery carefully, avoiding sensationalism, educating the audience and providing pathways to support. Yet the same materials are not available for reporting on distressing environmental news.

Disasters that affect our ecosystems can generate anxiety, grief and a sense of helplessness, which media reporting can amplify.

These effects accumulate when the event lasts months or years. This is even the case for people who have no direct contact with the original event.

Some level of public concern can promote action, something we have also found in our own work on algal blooms. But too much anxiety over a long period can be harmful, driving a range of psychological, behavioural, economic and physiological effects, including systemic stress and chronic inflammation.

How to strengthen environmental journalism

SA’s experience with the algal bloom suggests it’s time to extend the logic of existing media guidelines into the environmental domain. A dedicated framework for reporting on environmental disasters would not censor or dilute journalism. It would strengthen it.

Such guidelines could encourage upfront warnings about distressing content. They might include contextual framing that avoids fatalism. They should include support resources — not only crisis lines but educational resources, community services attuned to environmental anxiety, and opportunities for action.

Crucially, guidelines could prompt journalists to consider narrative balance: pairing exposure to harm with pathways for agency in response to environmental bad news. Without this, coverage risks tipping from information into overwhelm.

Whether the subject is violence against women, mental health, toxicity on our coasts, or perhaps now bird flu, we must ensure the duty of care to audiences keeps pace with the realities being reported.

Amy McLennan, Associate Professor, College of Systems and Society, Australian National University; Andrew Meares, Professor School of Cybernetics, and Jacqueline Stephens, Associate Professor in Public Health, Flinders University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Constant scratching, bumpy skin and tufts of lost fur.

Those are just some of the signs an animal has scabies, a severe and potentially fatal skin disease caused by tiny mites (Sarcoptes scabiei) that burrow into skin.

In humans, scabies most commonly presents as an itchy skin rash. Just this month, an outbreak of a highly infectious form of scabies shut down an entire hospital ward in the United Kingdom.

When this disease affects animals, it is called sarcoptic mange. Mange mites can infest 148 mammal species, including Australia’s much-loved bare-nosed wombat (Vombatus ursinus).

Early detection is key to treating affected animals. However, our new research reveals current diagnosis and treatment methods are not always up to scratch.

A debilitating disease

Sarcoptes scabiei mites infest animals by digging through layers of skin and creating a burrow, where they lay eggs and leave waste.

This triggers the skin’s immune system, causing skin to become red and itchy. It can also lead to rashes and flaky cracked skin, often referred to as crusted scabies.

In animals, mange spreads through direct contact, such as when animals socialise, mate or even fight. Mites may also move between animals that share burrows, dens or nests.

Animals with mange often scratch until their skin cracks, leaving them more exposed to bacterial infections. At that point, crusts can form around their ears and eyes that make it harder for them to see and hear. They can also rapidly lose weight and strength, and some ultimately die.

Which animals are most vulnerable?

Major mange outbreaks have decimated Spain’s Iberian ibex (Capra pyrenaica) population, as well as kit foxes (Vulpes macrotis) and black bears (Ursus americanus) in the United States.

In Australia, mange is worryingly widespread among bare-nosed wombats (Vombatus ursinus), with the disease affecting roughly 70% of the population. The disease also affects koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), quenda or southern brown bandicoots (Isoodon fusciventer), red-necked wallabies (Notamacropus rufogriseus) and Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii).

Overseas, severe mange outbreaks threaten to wipe out whole populations of vulnerable species. Examples include the critically endangered red-ruffed lemur (Varecia rubra) and the threatened reticulated giraffe (Giraffe reticulata), mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) and cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus).

These populations tend to be small, isolated and less genetically diverse. They are also under threat from climate change. As a result, these animals tend to have weaker immune systems and are more susceptible to mange and other diseases.

What we studied and what we found

In our new study, we examined all the methods scientists have used to diagnose mange over the past 30 years. This allowed us to identify which techniques would be most effective in remote field settings.

These techniques can be separated into two broad categories.

Non-invasive

Non-invasive methods rely on observation, rather than catching or holding an animal. Scientists can observe animals using their eyes or with tools such as binoculars and camera traps. Infra-red cameras and spotlights are especially useful at night. However, diagnosing mange from a distance is difficult. An animal might seem healthy when observed through binoculars or camera traps. That’s because signs of mange aren’t obvious during the early or mild infection stage.

Invasive

Invasive methods require an animal to be physically restrained so scientists can collect and check skin samples for mange mites. This typically involves using a sterile surgical scalpel to scrape an animal’s skin. However, invasive methods can cause extreme stress to animals, and some only work in a specialised lab environment.

Of all the methods we studied, visual observation was the primary way scientists diagnosed mange in remote areas. It was widely used as a diagnostic tool in 141 of the 228 studies we analysed and in more than 25 countries worldwide, including Australia, Spain and the United States. This is because it is economical, easy to do and highly effective at diagnosing animals with severe mange infections. Skin scraping was the second most common method.

Our study shows non-invasive techniques such as spotlighting and setting camera traps provide a big picture view of how widespread mange is. For example, in Spain’s Alt Pirineu National Park, researchers examined the images from 86 randomly placed cameras to visually assess red foxes. They found a large proportion of foxes showed obvious mange lesions, suggesting the disease was widespread in that population.

However, lab-based techniques are more accurate. One study of bare-nosed wombats found examining skin scrapings led to more accurate mange diagnoses than visual observation alone.

Combining forces

We recommend researchers and conservation groups combine both approaches: start with non-invasive methods to check the overall health of a population and then, if needed, use invasive methods to test a handful of animals with signs of mange.

To support conservation efforts, we must also invest more in population health and monitoring. This includes citizen science projects such as WomSAT, which relies on public reports to track the size, health and activities of Australia’s wombat population.

Mange threatens the very survival of the bare-nosed wombat and other iconic species. But by combining effective diagnosis with proactive monitoring efforts, we can protect our wildlife from this debilitating disease.

Chandni Sengupta, PhD Candidate, Animal Science, Western Sydney University; Hayley Stannard, Associate Professor, Animal Anatomy and Physiology, Charles Sturt University, and Julie Old, Associate Professor in Biology, Zoology and Animal Science, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

What’s the best way to manage a forest? Australians have argued about this for decades. The debate is often framed as binary: do we protect forests entirely, or harvest trees to support local economies and communities?

The reality is more interesting, as our new research on a long-forgotten experiment in Victoria’s mountain ash forests reveals.

Since the 1970s, scientists and the public have questioned the use of clearfell logging – where all trees in a block of forest are cut down. Conservationists argued it destroys habitat for rare species and reduces the forests’ ecological value. Foresters said mountain ash is adapted to catastrophic bushfires, and clearfelling is the forestry equivalent.

The argument was heated and the polarisation unhelpful. But the underlying questions about the impacts of clearfelling, and how they compared to less intensive forestry options, remained unresolved.

A landmark experiment

In the mid-1980s, the Victorian government launched a major restructure of the timber industry, and invested today’s equivalent of A$26 million to explore alternatives to clearfelling. This would use silviculture, the branch of forestry that deals with establishing, growing and tending forests.

The Silvicultural Systems Project was established at two sites between 1987 and 1989: Tanjil Bren in Victoria’s Central Highlands, and Cabbage Tree Creek in East Gippsland.

It was a landmark experiment, comparing forest regeneration across the full range of silvicultural approaches. These included traditional clearfells (250–350 metres wide), small patch clearfells (50–140m wide), and heavy thinnings, where 50–70% of trees were cut. Extensive areas of unharvested forest were kept as benchmarks for comparison.

The forest at Tanjil Bren was dense mountain ash regrowth from the 1939 fires. Hundreds of survey plots were established and thousands of seedlings were monitored. By the early 2000s, the results were clear: mountain ash regenerated best on clearfell sites. Where tall canopy trees were retained or the cleared patches were small, common understory species such as acacia dominated.

The findings were published. The access road grew over. The project sign collapsed. The experiment was forgotten. The debates continued.

But the trees kept growing.

Astounding results

In 2014 we visited the Tanjil Bren site as part of a University of Melbourne subject on silviculture in native forests. A colleague, Simon Murphy, had been involved in its establishment and suggested our students see the long-term outcomes of different silvicultural systems side-by-side. What we found was astounding.

The original results still held: 30 years later, the mountain ash in the large cleared patches and clearfelled areas was vigorous and abundant. But it was the heavily thinned parts of the forest that really caught our attention.

The trees left behind after thinning were enormous. While they were only 80 years old, the largest averaged well over a metre in diameter at chest height, and some were more than 1.5m. Thinning had given these trees more space and resources to grow, and they had responded dramatically. The largest trees in the thinned stands were 20% bigger in diameter than those in the unharvested control areas.

More remarkable still: the thinned stands of trees had stored as much or more carbon in their wood than the unharvested control areas. In just 30 years, the heavily thinned forest had not only recovered all the carbon removed during harvesting, but had also gained enough additional carbon to equal the increase seen in the unharvested controls.

These findings have profound implications. Bigger trees are more resistant to fires, so when the next fire occurs, they are more likely to survive. Bigger trees are also more likely to form hollows – a critical and declining habitat for rare species such as the greater glider and Leadbeater’s possum.

The acacia trees that grew in most of the silvicultural treatments are also vital for Leadbeater’s possums, which use it to forage and move around the forest. Camera traps across the sites confirmed this: Leadbeater’s possums were found in every silvicultural treatment plot we surveyed – but none of the unharvested areas.

Lessons for the future

The Tanjil Bren SSP offers three important lessons.

First, long-term silvicultural experiments are irreplaceable. Australia’s forests contain many forgotten experiments that could transform our understanding of how forests respond to human intervention. But all too often, they end up neglected, unfunded and forgotten. We should find them before it is too late.

Second, forest thinning is not a trade-off. Our findings show this for mountain ash, and other studies in North America have shown this for conifer forests. It can deliver wood for local industry, absorb carbon and improve habitat for wildlife. It is a win-win-win outcome that challenges the false dichotomy of conservation versus production that has dominated public debate for decades.

While thinning cannot (and should not) be done everywhere, it may be a useful tool to create more variety in tree ages and sizes, particularly in forests impacted by clearfelling or high-severity fire.

Third, and perhaps most importantly: there is no silvicultural silver bullet for managing forests. The long-forgotten experiment at Tanjil Bren has taught us that there are options available for managing our forests beyond clearfelling that can contribute to the societal demand for wood, maintain carbon stocks, and conserve biodiversity.

Kaitlyn Hammond, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Northern British Columbia; Craig Nitschke, Professor in Forest and Landscape Dynamics, The University of Melbourne; Patrick Baker, Director of the AFWI Centre for Climate Smart Forestry and Professor of Silviculture and Forest Ecology, The University of Melbourne, and Raphael Trouve, Senior Research Fellow in Forest Dynamics and Statistical Modelling, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When catastrophic wildfires capture global headlines, such as the unprecedented blazes sweeping through southern Europe this summer or the devastating 2019–20 “Black Summer” in Australia, they are almost always preceded by severe drought. Dry vegetation and parched landscapes are necessary ingredients for infernos.

But not all droughts are created equal – the way a drought evolves can drastically alter how a fire behaves once it ignites. As global temperatures rise, a new and dangerous phenomenon is becoming increasingly common: the “flash drought”.

Unlike standard droughts, which take place over months or years, flash droughts are rapidly occurring dry spells, driven by intense heat and unusually low humidity. They suck moisture out of the landscape at an alarming rate.

While scientists know standard droughts increase fire risks, a critical question has remained unanswered: do flash droughts further increase this risk, and what happens when these two drought types collide?

Our latest research mapped two decades of global satellite data to answer this question. We found when landscapes transition from a prolonged standard drought into a rapid flash drought – or when the two overlap – they create a “hyper-flammable” state. This acts as a massive fire accelerant; they spread faster, last longer and grow significantly larger than other wildfires.

How hyper-flammability works

To understand why this happens, we have to look at how different droughts affect the environment. The major difference is the speed at which they occur.

A standard drought acts like a slow, relentless oven. Over months, it gradually dries out vegetation and severely reduces soil moisture, leaving a dry environment primed to burn.

A flash drought, on the other hand, is like hitting the landscape with a high-powered hairdryer. The atmospheric dryness rapidly increases, characterised by extreme heat and low humidity, and quickly depletes remaining soil moisture.

When a standard drought turns into a flash drought, the effects don’t just add up; they multiply. Combined, they cause the fire danger to skyrocket, setting the perfect stage for fast-spreading and intense wildfires. Short-lived weather anomalies such as flash droughts generate disproportionately severe and extreme fires.

Tracking two decades of global fires

To uncover this pattern, we analysed global drought and satellite-based fire data sets from 2002 to 2021. Global wildfires were categorised into four distinct groups: fires occurring under normal (no drought) conditions; fires occurring during flash droughts; fires occurring during isolated standard droughts; and fires occurring where the two drought types overlapped or followed one another.

Across every single fire metric we measured, including speed, size, duration and spread, fires burning under combined drought conditions were the most extreme. The median size of these fires was 65% larger than fires in normal conditions, and 21% larger than those occurring during standard droughts alone. They spread 35% faster and burned 19% longer.

We also discovered that regions experiencing combined drought conditions endured significantly longer dry spells before a fire actually started. On average, 72 days passed between the onset of a combined drought and the start of a fire. This compared with only 17 days for flash droughts and 56 days for standard droughts. This prolonged period allows severe dryness to develop before fires start.

Global fire hotspots

While fires that follow standard droughts are widespread across the globe’s arid and semi-arid zones, we found fires following flash droughts and, particularly, combined droughts, clustered in distinct geographic hotspots.

The most extreme are heavily concentrated in highly vulnerable communities of plants and animals, including the savannas of South America and Africa, northern Australia, and the western United States.

These regions are highly susceptible to rapid-onset heat and moisture stress, making them ground zero for compounding climate extremes. The presence of both slow-moving and flash droughts causes the most extreme fire behaviour, thus amplifying the fire’s intensity.

Rethinking wildfire preparation

As the climate continues to heat up, the rate of evaporation increases worldwide. This means the frequency and extent of combined droughts are likely to increase across fire-prone regions around the world.

Crucially, we must stop viewing droughts simply as a static state of reduced moisture. Instead, we must recognise them as evolving processes, in which the shift from one type of drought to another can fundamentally change wildfire severity.

Unfortunately, many current global drought and fire monitoring systems emphasise real-time conditions, or look at drought severity as an aggregated whole. To better protect communities and nature, these systems urgently need to integrate information on how droughts evolve. This would enable us to better detect emerging hyper-flammable landscapes before the first spark.

Abhirup Dikshit, ARC DECRA Fellow, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW and Jason Evans, Professor, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On the first day of winter, southwest Western Australia was pummelled by a damaging storm. The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) described it as the most intense weather system to hit the region in almost 50 years. Although severe storms can be devastating, they’re also important for delivering rain in a part of Australia that is drying out.

As the planet continues to warm, climate patterns that were stable for decades are beginning to shift. This changes the extreme weather events we experience from day to day.

Long-term historical records help us make sense of recent trends. They give us a rare chance to see how weather extremes have changed since pre-industrial times.

In meteorology, atmospheric pressure measures the weight of the air around us, with sudden drops indicating stormy conditions. Our new study, published in Climate Dynamics, has reconstructed the longest record of pressure readings taken multiple times a day in the Southern Hemisphere, tracking severe storms in Perth from 1830.

Historically, data from this region has been sparse. Our results are a vital contribution to the World Meteorological Organization’s global network of long-term monitoring stations.

By consolidating nearly 200 years of daily pressure, temperature and rainfall observations from Perth, our research reveals new details about the behaviour of severe storms, and broader weather trends across Australia.

Reconstructing weather extremes from Australia’s past

How did Australia’s climate fluctuate before the large-scale burning of fossil fuels? To find out, we needed to look at historical weather observations recorded during the pre-industrial period.

Data used by the BoM to study long-term weather and climate typically begin in the early 1900s. But older weather records do exist in state and national archives – we just need to “rescue” them. This means digitising fragile journals and transcribing historical observations for weather and climate research.

There have been past weather data rescue efforts in Australia, but these mostly focused on temperature and rainfall. Pre-1955 barometer readings – measurements of atmospheric pressure – for most Australian capital cities are only available in the BoM’s original handwritten meteorological registers.

By recovering these historical observations, we mapped the large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns that drive extreme weather – from low-pressure storm systems to high-pressure heatwaves. This allowed us to reconstruct past weather maps, day by day, all the way back to 1830.

We focused on the data rescue of multiple daily pressure readings from Perth. This work provides the “missing link” between the BoM’s pressure observations available for the city from 1942, and our team’s previous data rescue efforts, including a citizen science project to transcribe 19th century materials.

What did the records show?

We consolidated 196 years of weather data from four historical sites:

• Swan River (1830–1875)
• Perth Gardens (1876–1900)
• Perth Observatory (1897–1908).
• Perth Regional Office (1907–1944).

This work builds on our previous analysis of daily temperature extremes in Adelaide, allowing us to evaluate long-term changes in severe storms in another important area of southern Australia.

We identified 141 severe storms that impacted Perth between 1830 and 2024. We cross-checked these against historical material, including newspaper articles.

For example, on June 17 1927, a “terrific wind and rain storm” impacted Perth with a record wind speed of 128km per hour, causing extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure. It was reported as a storm of “cyclonic strength”, which wasn’t just media exaggeration – such high wind speeds are classified as a category 2 tropical cyclone today.

Why are winter storms declining?

The decline in Perth’s winter storms since 1970 is linked to changes to the Hadley cell – a major atmospheric circulation pattern that influences the Earth’s climate.

This large-scale pattern is responsible for moving heat from the equator toward the poles, creating wet rainforests at the equator and dry desert zones in the subtropics.

As increasing greenhouse gases and ozone depletion heat the atmosphere, the Hadley cell is expanding. In Australia, this is pushing the subtropical high-pressure desert belt poleward. In turn, this weakens the rain-bearing westerly winds and the storm fronts that usually travel across our southern coastline, reducing rainfall across the southern mainland.

Since the 1970s, this process has triggered the drying of subtropical regions around the world, including southern Australia, southern Africa, and the Mediterranean.

Southwestern Australia is recognised as a global climate change hotspot, having experienced a dramatic 20% decrease in winter rainfall since 1970.

Until now, studies tracking the pathway of past storms were confined to the mid-20th century onward, when modern datasets begin. Most studies have also focused on the Northern Hemisphere where long-term pressure records are more common.

Looking back to look forward

Our extended analysis shows the modern decline in storms hitting Perth is unusually persistent. The decade from 2010 to 2019 had fewer storms than any other decade since 1830.

Our analysis also identified a long dry period between 1830 and 1846 that was actually drier than our current rainfall deficit.

While the modern decline is more relentless, this historical dry spell suggests that modern weather observations don’t capture the full range of natural variability and extremes.

This means future climate risk is likely being underestimated in Perth, and across Australia in general.

Historical observations are our best way of filling crucial gaps in Australia’s climate records, allowing us to sharpen our forecasts of future weather extremes in a warmer world.

Joëlle Gergis, Honorary Associate Professor of Climate Science, The University of Melbourne; Jarrad Rowe, PhD Candidate, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne, and Linden Ashcroft, Senior Lecturer, Climate Science and Science Communication, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Last summer, Australia’s electricity grid underwent a quiet but consequential shift.

Across the east coast, gas-fired power stations – long viewed as the only way to keep the grid functioning on our hottest or coldest days – barely ran.

The amount of energy generated by fossil gas this year dropped to its lowest point in 25 years. Batteries are now filling this gap, as a cheaper, cleaner alternative at peak times.

And wholesale electricity prices are 47% lower than this time last year, thanks to record renewable and battery generation.

This shift sits at the heart of the CSIRO’s latest GenCost report, which tells a story of two technologies heading in opposite directions: batteries getting cheaper and gas getting more expensive.

The steady shift away from coal

In Australia, most of our electricity historically came from coal. But each year we’re becoming less reliant on this finite and polluting resource. Coal usage has dropped by 25% in the past decade. In the first three months of 2026, renewables supplied a record 45% of electricity in Australia’s east coast grid.

This matters because electricity generation produces 32% of Australia’s carbon emissions. These emissions are worsening climate change, leading to more extreme weather and leaving many Australians physically and financially vulnerable.

Our coal power stations are also ageing. Like an old car, these stations are now breaking down more often and becoming more expensive to fix. When coal plants suddenly go offline, it pushes electricity prices up.

The federal government is aiming for 82% renewable energy by 2030 nationally. To meet that target, we must develop new wind and solar projects. But we also need new “firming” technologies, such as batteries and pumped hydro, to make sure we always have energy available.

Batteries are getting cheaper

The latest GenCost report confirms that renewables, backed by batteries, are the cheapest source of new electricity.

Critically, the cost of big, grid-scale batteries fell by 11–16% in 2025. And the CSIRO expects costs to keep dropping each year. This is because we get better at building these technologies as we build more of them.

More batteries

Across power grids, electric vehicles, computers and phones, we’re installing more and more batteries each year. Between 2024 and 2025, global battery storage capacity jumped by 40%. Australia is leading the charge, ranking third in the world for battery installations.

Plummeting costs

Battery costs have fallen more than 99% since 1991. More streamlined supply chains and economies of scale have made this battery boom possible.

Research shows each time global battery storage doubles, the cost of manufacturing battery cells drops by 21%. In the future, this may boost the development of new battery technologies. This self-supporting cycle means the cheaper batteries get, the more ways we can use them. And the more we use them, the cheaper batteries are to make.

Gas is getting more expensive

Gas plants rely on gas turbines. Unlike batteries, gas turbines are produced in relatively small numbers by only a handful of global manufacturers. This is because they are complex machines that often require specialised materials.

Demand for new gas turbines was low for the past decade. But it’s now increasing, largely due to the data centre boom in the United States. Power demand for data centres is already pushing up prices. Major gas turbine manufacturers are warning it will now take four years just to make and deliver a new turbine.

Gas plants also face other challenges. Gas is not always available at critical times. Australia’s newest gas turbine, Kurri Kurri in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley, only has enough available gas to run for about ten hours at a time and reportedly takes more than 24 hours to refuel. This makes it less flexible and more expensive than new eight-hour batteries.

Another challenge is the high cost of gas sourced from fossil fuels. As Australia’s gas exports grew, domestic gas prices surged to international levels. To date, this has been the main factor driving up household electricity prices.

Together, these challenges mean the cost of gas generation is unlikely to drop anytime soon.

A balancing act

To be clear, gas turbines may still be valuable in future.

As Australia makes its clean energy transition, batteries will increasingly do the heavy lifting. But my research shows the grid will likely need stored fuel for backup power generation, for example if a stretch of cloudy, windless days coincides with high demand. This may even involve building extra gas turbines, but using them less often as emergency generators for the grid.

However, these turbines cannot run on fossil gas going forward. Over the next 10–20 years, global carbon constraints will require us to transition from fossil fuels. Instead we can use alternative fuels such as biodiesel, a biodegradable fuel made from vegetable oils or animal fats. Green hydrogen from renewable energy or green methanol produced from agricultural and forestry waste are other options. This transition makes further investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, such as gas pipelines or gas fields, much riskier.

In the meantime, the incredible surge of batteries in our homes, cars and broader network means our grid is already shifting away from gas. That’s promising news, both for our planet and our hip pockets.

Joel Gilmore, Associate Professor, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

California is once again confronting a rapidly escalating wildfire season fuelled by extreme heat, drying vegetation, drought and strong winds.

As of 24 July, the state has recorded more than 3,800 wildfires so far this year, burning approximately 79,000 hectares. The largest active blaze, in Lassen County, had grown to more than 28,000 hectares.

The immediate images are familiar to Australians: towering smoke columns and orange skies. But these wildfires are not simply the result of hot summer weather. They are driven by a chain of interacting climatic, environmental and human factors.

In Australia, a powerful El Niño and the possible emergence of a positive Indian Ocean Dipole would bring drier, warmer weather. This could create similarly dangerous conditions in southern and eastern Australia this spring and summer.

A hot, dry landscape primed to burn

In southern California, persistent drought, abundant grass growth and low coastal moisture have accelerated the drying of vegetation. In the north of the state, early–season dryness and the development of “flash drought” conditions have pushed some landscapes towards critical fire danger.

As temperatures rise, warm air can draw more moisture from plants and soils. This means that even if it rains, vegetation cannot replace the water it loses. Even living plants can dry enough to burn fiercely.

Warm nights — a product of global heating — are another concern. Previously, cool and humid overnight conditions give firefighters a chance to strengthen containment lines. When nights remain hot and dry, fires can burn around the clock.

Strong winds and a century of fire suppression

Heat and drought create flammable landscapes, but wind often determines whether a fire becomes a disaster. As we witnessed with the catastrophic Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025, California’s mountain ranges, valleys and passes can funnel winds.

The significance of wind was clear in the present fires in eastern California, where erratic winds contributed to rapid fire spread around the Highway 395 corridor.

California’s rugged terrain also makes wildfires more difficult to control. Flames generally travel faster uphill because heat rises and preheats vegetation above the fire. Steep slopes also restrict access for firefighting vehicles and ground crews.

In some forests, decades of fire suppression have contributed to dense undergrowth and accumulations of fallen timber. Frequent, relatively mild fires once removed some of this material. Where wildfire has been excluded, vegetation may form “ladder fuels” that carry flames from the forest floor into the tree canopy.

Climate change is loading the dice

Fires can begin through lightning, machinery, vehicles, power lines, campfires or deliberate acts. Climate change creates a warmer background climate in which fuels dry more quickly and remain dry for longer.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports climate change has become one of the dominant drivers of the increase in fire weather conditions across the western United States.

Research has also identified an increase of about 25 days in the annual fire season when dangerous fire conditions occur simultaneously across large areas of the western United States. This raises the possibility of several major fires competing for aircraft, firefighters and emergency resources at the same time.

Climate change is loading the dice towards more dangerous fire weather globally, even though weather, ignition and land management still determine the behaviour of individual fires.

California’s wildfire risk is also increasing because homes and infrastructure continue to expand into the wildland–urban interface: the zone where towns and suburbs meet forests, grasslands and shrublands.

Australia’s warning from across the Pacific

The Californian wildfires carry a clear warning for southern and eastern Australia as spring and summer approach.

The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed on 14 July that El Niño is underway, with oceanic and atmospheric indicators showing a well–established event. Most climate models indicate that El Niño will strengthen and persist until at least the austral summer, with a high likelihood of becoming a very strong event and potentially ranking among the strongest observed since 1950.

El Niño commonly reduces winter and spring rainfall across eastern Australia and is associated with warmer daytime temperatures in southern Australia. Its effects vary between events, however. The strength of an El Niño does not translate directly into the severity of drought or bushfire.

Also of interest is the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). In mid–July it remained neutral, indicating that sea–surface temperatures across the tropical Indian Ocean were close to their long–term average and that a positive IOD had not yet developed.

During a positive IOD, waters near Indonesia and north–western Australia are cooler than normal, while the western tropical Indian Ocean becomes warmer. This tends to shift tropical rainfall westwards and reduce the moisture available to rain–bearing systems across southern and south–eastern Australia.

If a strong El Niño and positive IOD develop together, their drying influences could reinforce one another during late winter and spring.

How we should respond

The present warning signs are concerning Australian fire and emergency authorities. The seasonal outlook for winter 2026 found above–normal fire potential in drought–affected parts of central and northern New South Wales.

Without significant rainfall, warmer and drier conditions could also produce increased fire activity across south-eastern Australia. The greatest danger would arise where earlier rainfall promoted abundant growth of grasses and shrubs.

This does not guarantee a severe Australian bushfire season. Nevertheless, the warning signs justify early preparation.

California demonstrates how quickly drought, heat, dry fuels, wind and human exposure can combine to produce a major emergency. Should a strong or very strong El Niño coincide with a positive IOD, southern and eastern Australia may enter spring with a highly flammable landscape — and with little room for complacency.

Steve Turton, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geography, CQUniversity Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes in southwestern France and Spain as extreme wildfires intensify. At least three people have died, including two firefighters. Many houses have been lost.

While this region is no stranger to fire, our analysis shows these wildfires are off the charts. A very hot summer primed many areas for fire. When they ignited, they spread ferociously. The area of land burned in France is already 40% larger than the previous record year.

Some fires pose threats to large cities such as Bordeaux in France and Madrid in Spain. For the first time ever recorded in France, a fire thunderstorm (pyrocumulonimbus) formed over fires and made them worse. French President Emmanuel Macron described the fires as “unprecedented”.

A Spanish firefighter told AP the fires were extremely hard to fight:

the fire is so virulent and has such power that no matter what you do, you can’t put it out.

Authorities are scrambling to control the fires before another heatwave begins later this week.

How bad are these fires?

We have compiled data for this article showing just how unusual these fires are, compared with previous wildfires.

Three of the 15 largest wildfires since the European Union began recording data 20 years ago have burned during the past month.

In France, the energy output from the fires measured by NASA satellites is double the previous record for July. With another month or two left in the fire season, France is on track for its worst season since satellite records began in the early 2000s.

The Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and France’s Mediterranean regions are well known to be wildfire-prone. Last year, our research predicted wildfires would worsen in these areas under moderate climate change of 1.5°C and 2°C above average pre-industrial temperatures. Global warming has hit 1.5°C over the past three years.

What we didn’t expect was the appearance of massive, intense fires along the more humid Atlantic coast of France, near Bordeaux. These fires are worse than we predicted.

What’s making them so bad?

Spain and southwestern France are in the grip of severe drought and recurrent intense heatwaves well outside the range of records kept since 1940. Temperatures across the region have been around 4–5°C above average for June. This is what we would expect as the climate changes.

More heatwaves are forecast as the European summer wears on. As a result, 2026 is likely to become a clear outlier for extreme heat in western Europe.

Uncontrolled wildfires are not a surprise after a prolonged drought and extreme heatwaves. Arid conditions and dry ground make it much easier for vegetation to burn.

We don’t know how these fires started. But we do know densely populated areas are reliable sources of ignition. Fires can start from a tossed cigarette, lightning strike, car backfire or if someone deliberately lights them.

It’s possible to reduce the chance of ignitions when conditions make intense fires likely, but it’s not realistic to stop them altogether.

What are the consequences for people?

Huge fires like these do a great deal of damage, in both the short and long term.

Because many of these fires threaten towns and cities, authorities have ordered mass evacuations. This protects human lives, but makes it more likely houses and other structures will burn if there’s no one to defend them.

We don’t yet know how many houses have been lost. But the scale of the fires suggests there will be significant losses.

We also don’t yet know how bad the toll from smoke will be. Millions of people have been exposed to harmful wildfire smoke. Big fires like these prompt many people to seek care at hospitals for respiratory and cardiovascular issues. There’s a small but noticeable effect on mortality.

What does it mean for the climate?

The size and energy release of these fires will drive a spike in greenhouse emissions, as burned vegetation releases carbon to the atmosphere.

Across the Northern Hemisphere, forest fires are becoming more intense and more common. Wildfires are currently hitting Canada and the United States. In recent years, fires have ignited in unexpected places, such as Scotland and even Greenland.

Intensifying fires make it harder for us to tackle climate change. Forests are vital natural stores of carbon. But they are now shifting in some places to a net source of carbon.

If unchecked, this could trigger a dangerous feedback cycle that would further destabilise Earth’s climate.

There is little doubt climate change has made France and Spain’s wildfires worse. They represent yet another reason to redouble our efforts to tackle climate change and stabilise our climate.

For authorities responding, it will be vital to use adaptation responses to reduce risks from the next wildfire crisis. These include reducing fuel loads and fire hazards, using methods such as prescribed burning, forest thinning and incorporating green firebreaks into urban landscape design.

No country has yet solved the challenge of responding to wildfires made worse by climate change. The intense fires gripping France and Spain show how urgent it is to be prepared.

David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, University of Tasmania; Calum Cunningham, Research Fellow in Pyrogeography, University of Tasmania, and Grant Williamson, Research Fellow in Environmental Science, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As the planet warms, countries around the world are racing to meet their net zero targets set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

To achieve this, we must collectively curb our net greenhouse gas emissions. These gases – the largest contributor being carbon dioxide (CO₂) – act as a cosmic blanket by trapping heat in Earth’s atmosphere.

Scientists are investigating ways to lock up more atmospheric carbon in our oceans, forests and soils.

One of the proposed methods is ocean alkalinity enhancement. This aims to boost the ocean’s natural ability to absorb and store atmospheric carbon dioxide by changing the chemistry of seawater.

So how does this process work, and what are the risks?

Let’s unpack the research.

A lesson in ocean chemistry

The ocean is one of the largest carbon stores on the planet. About 30% of the CO₂ we emit annually – through burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas – are absorbed by our seas.

The ocean’s ability to absorb CO₂ is largely determined by how alkaline it is. Seawater is naturally alkaline. This is because over millions of years, the ocean has absorbed alkaline minerals from the weathering and breakdown of rocks

What is ocean alkalinity enhancement?

By taking up atmospheric carbon, the ocean has helped regulate Earth’s climate over long periods. However, this natural process is far too slow to combat climate change.

That’s where ocean alkalinity enhancement comes in.

Alkalinity enhancement accelerates this carbon capture process by increasing the ocean’s alkalinity. This allows seawater to convert more dissolved CO₂ into stable forms. As a result, the ocean absorbs more CO₂ overall and keeps more carbon out of our atmosphere.

In practice, increasing the ocean’s alkalinity involves adding materials such as dissolved sodium hydroxide or ground-up silicate and carbonate rocks to seawater.

So far, it has been tested through several small-scale projects. These typically involve researchers releasing alkaline materials at coastal locations, using ships or special facilities and equipment.

Questions remain

While this method seems promising, there are still some unknowns.

Scale

We don’t know whether it’s possible to roll it out at scale, which is key to reaching global net zero targets. Scientists are also investigating how well ocean alkalinity enhancement works in different regions and marine ecosystems.

This means projects must be tailored to specific locations. Our research shows even seemingly minor differences in ocean currents, wind, water depth and seasonal conditions all affect how much CO₂ can be absorbed.

Safety

Early field trials and modelling suggest removing CO₂ through small-scale alkalinity enhancement projects had few measurable impacts on nearby protected areas.

Several lab-based studies also suggest small increases in alkalinity have little to no effect on some Australian kelp and algae species. Meanwhile, other research identifies limitations on the amount that can be added and ecosystem effects from different alkaline materials.

Scientists are working to add to this evidence base through proposed field tests in the Bass Strait, conducted aboard the RV Investigator. These tests, which will bring together experts and students from across Australia, will help us identify any environmental impacts and hone our skills in measuring changes caused by ocean alkalinity enhancement.

Community support

Without public support, alkalinity enhancement projects are unlikely to be successful. Research suggests communities are somewhat wary. Research from Tasmania shows people prefer to be involved in decision-making processes and not just consulted. Communities also want clear information about the environmental impacts of future projects.

In Australia, we must also engage with First Nations communities when designing field tests and proposed projects. Only then can we draw on their deep knowledge and enduring connection to Sea Country.

Where to from here

Our climate is rapidly changing. And unless we curb our carbon emissions, this trend will only get worse.

Locking up atmospheric carbon dioxide through ocean alkalinity enhancement is one way to do this. However, changing the chemistry of our oceans comes with certain risks and limitations.

So any future attempts must balance the urgent need for atmospheric carbon removal with robust research and meaningful community engagement. This ensures that any ocean alkalinity enhancement is both environmentally responsible and socially supported.

Getting this balance right is essential for Australia and other nations, informing how we steward our seas and other natural resources to reach our ambitious climate targets.

Harris Anderson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal, CSIRO; Andrew Lenton, Research Lead, Carbon Dioxide Removal, CSIRO, and Mathieu Mongin, Research scientist, CSIRO

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Peatlands are the unsung heroes of nature.

These ancient wetlands form when dead and decaying plants partly decompose in wet, low-oxygen conditions. Over thousands of years, this plant material builds up and turns into a dark, soil-like substance known as peat.

Brazil, Indonesia and central Africa’s Congo Basin are all famous for their peatlands. Australia is also dotted with these ancient wetlands.

Peatlands are crucial carbon stores, locking up roughly one-third of the carbon found in our planet’s soils.

But when peat dries out and burns, the consequences can be disastrous: incinerated soils, smouldering wetlands, air pollution and massive carbon emissions.

But surprisingly, peat fires in dry Australia aren’t always a problem. Sometimes, these fires do vital ecological work.

When peatlands burn

Globally, peatland fires are generally viewed as an environmental danger.

In Indonesia, for example, authorities this year are bracing for severe peat fires under the hotter, drier conditions created by a strong El Niño weather pattern. Peatland fires are also worryingly common in countries such as Malaysia and Chile.

These fires are most destructive when they don’t just burn vegetation, but the peat itself. When peat catches fire, it can smoulder underground for months or even years.

These hidden blazes are much harder to extinguish, and inflict long-term damage on wetland plants, animals and ecosystems. They also release massive amounts of stored carbon back into the atmosphere.

Australia: a more nuanced picture

In some environments, fire is both a danger and a vital ecological process. Australia is a case in point.

Australia is home to various kinds of peatlands. These range from desert mound springs in outback Western Australia and South Australia to subtropical coastal peat swamps, which stretch from Queensland to New South Wales. There are also the buttongrass moorlands of Tasmania and alpine bogs found across eastern Australia.

Some of these ecosystems have evolved to thrive even after being burnt. So under the right conditions, authorities can use fire to help conserve them.

Ecological burns involve lighting controlled, low-temperature fires to maintain, restore or boost the health of an ecosystem. These fires stop vegetation from growing too densely. They also create and maintain crucial habitat for local wildlife by making space for new plants to grow. Heat and smoke from fire can also germinate the seeds of certain fire-adapted plants.

We can see this in the Fleurieu Peninsula swamps of South Australia. At these nationally threatened wetlands, authorities often run ecological burning programs. These burns have ensured several threatened species – such as the Yundi guinea-flower (Hibbertia tenuis) and southern emu-wren (Stipiturus malachurus intermedius) – are now flourishing. Other research shows heat and smoke from managed fires have accelerated seedling growth across these swamps.

Ecological burns are not a modern invention, but have many parallels with cultural burning. Charcoal and pollen records suggest First Nations communities were already burning parts of the Fleurieu Peninsula wetlands well before European settlement.

Burning plants, not peat

To restore peatlands with fire, it’s crucial that any flames burn vegetation without affecting the peat below. This ensures the peat stays wet and protected.

If a blaze reaches the peat layer, it becomes an urgent environmental risk.

This happened not too long ago in the peatlands of south-west Western Australia. There an underground peat fire burnt for more than six months in 2024, becoming one of the state’s longest-running fires. And it kept burning despite record rain and the efforts of local firefighters.

Wetlands can take centuries to recover from peat fires. Studies of major fires in Australian alpine peatlands show various factors – including fire severity, peat moisture and vegetation type – affect how quickly and well an ecosystem recovers.

Climate change will make it harder

In a warming world, peat fires are becoming increasingly common.

Hotter temperatures, drier conditions and more frequent above-ground fires increase the risk of damaging peat fires. These factors also mean ecological burns must be carefully planned and managed.

This problem has no simple solution. We can’t just ban all forms of fire, or simply get rid of peatlands.

Instead, we should identify which peatlands may actually benefit from ecological burns. When lighting controlled fires, we must ensure peat stays wet and protected at all costs. And we urgently need more research to understand how other factors – such as peat depth, moisture, vegetation and fire history – may heighten the risk of peat fires.

Christopher Auricht, Visiting Research Fellow in Natural Resources Management, Adelaide University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Australian government this week announced plans to construct a new large-scale oil refinery in Western Australia. If approved, it would be the first refinery to be built since the 1960s.

The federal government initially touted the idea of a government-backed oil refinery in April. In the months since, Australians have grappled with surging petrol prices triggered by the prolonged US-Iran war.

The federal government, with Western Australia, has now announced it will jointly fund a A$4 million pre-feasibility study into a proposed large-scale oil refinery. This study will assess if Australia needs a new large-scale refinery and, if so, where it should go and how it should be operated.

This announcement raises several crucial questions: what is the government proposing? Could it shore up Australia’s fuel supplies? And what does it mean for emissions reduction?

A country exposed

The prolonged US-Iran war has revealed just how vulnerable Australia’s liquid fuel supply is.

Two decades ago, Australia had eight oil refineries. That number has dwindled to two – Queensland’s Ampol refinery and Victoria’s Viva energy plant – as ageing infrastructure and rising costs made these facilities uneconomical. For these reasons the Kwinana refinery – formerly Australia’s largest oil refinery located just south of Perth – shut down in 2021.

These closures have made Australia extremely reliant on liquid fossil fuel imports. We currently import 90% of our petrol, jet fuel and diesel from Asia. The remaining 10% of liquid fuels come from Australia’s two remaining refineries. Both refineries are remnants of the oil boom of the 1950s and 60s, when several major oil companies scrambled to take advantage of newly discovered Bass Strait oil and a wave of government investment.

But our research shows Australia needed more refineries, even before the US-Iran conflict erupted. This was made clear by the refinery fire at Victoria’s Viva plant in April, which temporarily halted domestic production. However, several factors – including high construction costs, declining domestic crude oil supply and intense competition from Asian mega-refineries – have stopped Australia from building new plants.

All about location

The $4 million pre-feasibility study will determine where a new refinery should be built. The government has identified Western Australia as the most suitable state. But it is yet to confirm exactly where the proposed refinery will go.

There are two main contenders. One is Kwinana, which is close to Perth’s urban energy market and the now-closed Kwinana refinery. However, it’s unlikely to win out given the former refinery site is earmarked for redevelopment as a biofuels hub.

The other option is Karratha in WA’s Pilbara region. This fast-growing city is suitable for two reasons. It’s close to the North West Shelf project, Australia’s largest operating oil and gas development. It’s also where Perdaman, the company slated to construct the proposed refinery, is already building a $6.5 billion fertiliser plant.

Feeding the refinery

For the proposed refinery to work, it requires a steady supply of oil.

Australia produces around 250,000 barrels of light crude oil each day. Most of this oil is exported to Asian refineries, and returns to Australia as liquid fuel.

WA’s northwest shelf region primarily produces gas. This means it offers only limited feedstock – the raw or processed oil needed to make fuels, chemicals or plastics – for a proposed refinery.

It’s possible to redirect northwest shelf oil so it goes to the refinery, instead of being exported. However, Australia’s existing export contracts could make this difficult, and negotiations may be necessary.

An alternative oil source is the Bass Strait. In 2026, the federal government started showing interest in Victoria’s Gippsland basin and the Bass basin, in the waters between Victoria’s southern tip and northern Tasmania. The government is now exploring these basins as potential offshore petroleum sites to gauge if there’s appetite for future exploration licences among petroleum companies.

Looking ahead

If approved, it would take between five to ten years to build a facility of this size, subject to whether approvals are fast-tracked.

If the proposal does go ahead, a new refinery would provide much-needed liquid fuel security in a world of surging energy prices and volatile oil supplies. Depending on its size, the new refinery may exceed the former Kwinana refinery’s daily production of 146,000 barrels of oil. This would reduce Australia’s reliance on imported fuel, and ease the petrol pump pain of all Australians.

But it also begs the question, should Australia keep producing conventional liquid fuels? Our rapidly warming climate demands we shift away from these polluting energy sources. Low-carbon biofuels – renewable fuels made from plants, algae or animal waste – may be one alternative.

Another possible path forward is designing any new refineries so that biofuels can be produced alongside traditional liquid fuels. However, this must be viable from both an environmental and fuel security perspective, and should be a focus of the government’s pre-feasibility study.

Tina Soliman-Hunter, Professor of Energy and Natural Resources Law, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.