Red List throws the spotlight on Australia's threatened species
04 May 2006
The hairy-nosed wombat, southern blue fin tuna and four species of sawfish are just some of Australia's species identified in a major new international report as being at risk of extinction.
The World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Species released in early May ranks Australia in the top four countries in the world for threatened species, ranging from Vulnerable to Critically Endangered.
The Red List identifies 639 species in Australia as threatened with extinction, with 65 species identified as critically endangered.
However, WWF estimates this number to be much higher - most likely in the thousands - as a result of land clearing, overfishing, and the impact of weeds and feral animals.
"The Red List is like a health check for the planet and what we can see is that the Earth is sick and we are feeling this acutely in Australia. Unless we take the steps necessary to restore its health it will continue to decline," says WWF Senior Policy Advisor Andreas Glanznig.
"Many of our species have declined to critical population levels, important habitats are being destroyed, fragmented, and degraded, and ecosystems are being destabilised through climate change, pollution, invasive species, and other direct human impacts."
For example, it's been more than a decade since Pacific leatherback turtles - the most ancient and the largest marine turtle species left on the planet - have revisited nesting beaches in eastern Australia.
WWF believes this signals the start of an extinction of this population.
This year's Red List builds on the findings of a major United Nations report into biodiversity around the world released in March.
The UN Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 report found that a staggering 40 per cent of the entire mass of the world's plants and animals had disappeared between 1970 and 2000. It also found that plant and animal species present in rivers, lakes and marshlands had declined by half.
"These sorts of statistics really are quite staggering and show that the abundance and variety of life on this planet is clearly declining at unprecedented rates," Mr Glanznig says.
Find out more
Charlie Stevens, Press Officer, WWF-Australia
Phone: 02 8202 1274
Mobile: 0424 649 689
Email: cstevens@wwf.org.au
