The emergence of sarcoptic mange in Australian wildlife via pet dogs
>>
https://mastodon.au/@Bellingen/114384263250656422
#wildlife #conservation #parasites #Sarcoptidae #mange #InvasiveSpecies #koalas #wombats #bandicoots #possums #roaming #pets #dogs #dogs #dogs #SettlerSociety #Biosecurity
The family farm - years of 'bashing and burning'
"I bashed the trees down and burnt everything … I was a bash and burner."
"It took about 200 years to transform a once wild island into an agricultural powerhouse,
farmers raised to conquer the land; slashing native vegetation to make way for agriculture.Much of King Island's native vegetation has been cleared for farmland."
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-21/king-island-environmental-destruction-farmer-conservationist/104743516
#extinction #farming #FamilyFarm #Australia #LandClearing #culture #SettlerSociety #machinery #SlashandBurn #deforestation #meat #biodiversity
The Sydney surburban sprawl that’s a death zone for koalas
video >>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-13/the-sydney-surburban-sprawl-that%E2%80%99s-a-death-zone/105169238
#koalas #Biodiversity #sprawl #roads #trauma #cars #RoadTrauma #Sydney #NSW #extinction #ExtinctionCrisis #SettlerSociety #thylacines
The Sydney surburban sprawl that’s a death zone for koalas
video >>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-13/the-sydney-surburban-sprawl-that%E2%80%99s-a-death-zone/105169238
#koalas #Biodiversity #sprawl #roads #trauma #cars #RoadTrauma #Sydney #NSW #extinction #ExtinctionCrisis #SettlerSociety #thylacines
Australia is in an extinction crisis – why isn’t it an issue at this election?
"Over the past decade, more than 550 Australian species have been either newly recognised as at risk of extinction or moved a step closer to being erased from the planet."
"Analysis shows 1,964,200 hectares of koala habitat was cleared between 2012 and 2021 – 81% of that in Queensland."
"Australia tops global rankings for mammal extinction – at least 33 species have died out since European invasion and colonisation – and is number two behind Indonesia for loss of biodiversity. The challenge is not only to stop the loss of habitat but to restore the environment in places it has been lost in 250 years of European-driven clearing."
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/07/australia-is-in-an-extinction-crisis-why-isnt-it-an-issue-at-this-election
#biodiversity #ecosystems #loss #nature #wildlife #koalas #care #biosphere #laws #deforestation #extractivism #SettlerSociety #destruction #extinction #pollution #sprawl #housing #governance #ExtinctionCrisis #FossilFuels
Human-made ecosystems: Ecological novelty is now the "new normal" for our planet
"30-40% of the world's terrestrial ecosystems have already transformed into novel states."
"O'ahu as an "amazing crystal ball" that offers a glimpse of the future of our planet if humans continue to damage environments and drive species to extinction."
"Hawaii's O'ahu's lowland forests are now almost entirely devoid of the plants and animals that grew here for millions of years before the arrival of humans. Settlers brought extinctions by cutting down trees to make farms and introducing voracious predators and disease-carrying animals. Today, these tropical forests are a tapestry of non-native species introduced from every corner of the planet: Brazilian peppertree, Indonesian cinnamon and roseleaf bramble from the Himalayas and Australia. Most of the animals, including all the birds that Tarwater mentioned earlier, are also alien."
"We like to think of O'ahu as the cautionary tale for all the other Pacific Islands and the Hawaiian Islands. It's what you don't want to have happen – Corey Tarwater"
>>
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250403-the-new-hawaiian-freakosystem-emerging-on-oahu-accidentally-created-by-humans
Towards a novel biosphere in 2300: rapid and extensive global and biome-wide climatic novelty in the Anthropocene
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rstb.2023.0022
#biodiversity #biosphere #ecosystems #extinction #birds #loss #InvasiveSpecies #degradation #SettlerSociety #cattle #dogs #grasses #NovelEcosystems #weeds #restoration #Pacific
Extinction is a choice
"The Albanese government took power in May 2022, it pledged to end “wilful neglect” of the environment and to introduce stronger environmental laws "
"Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has been taken to court over 11 threatened species. Here’s why
Today, environmental group the Wilderness Society launched a case in the Federal Court against Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, arguing she and successive environment ministers have failed to meet their legal obligations to create threatened species recovery plans."
>>
https://theconversation.com/environment-minister-tanya-plibersek-has-been-taken-to-court-over-11-threatened-species-heres-why-219231
#Biodiversity #extinction #Australia #WilfulNeglect #laws #SettlerSociety #extractivism #ecocide
Exposing the ugly underbelly of settler colonialism in Australia
“This was a horrendous research experience, but it did expose the ugly underbelly of settler colonialism in Australia."
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2019/mar/04/massacre-map-australia-the-killing-times-frontier-wars
Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930
Data from the Colonial Frontier Massacres Digital Map Project led by Prof Lyndall Ryan at the University of Newcastle’s Centre for the 21st Century Humanities.
>>
https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/
#TruthTelling #SettlerSociety #violence #colonialism #ConspiracyOfSilence #frontier #ResourceFrontiers #ContemporaneityOfTheNonContemporaneous #IndigenousPeoples #Australia
Provide habitat and fund wildlife hospitals!
"The WA Wildlife Hospital has seen a 17 per cent year-on-year increase in patient admissions over the past 15 years."
Reasons?
"These include increasing urban sprawl, with suburbs encroaching on natural habitats as the population grows, and attacks from introduced predators such as wandering cats, foxes and dogs."
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-20/wa-wildlife-hospital-buckling-under-surging-animal-admissions/104923496
#Biodiversity #wildlife #birds #carers #sprawl #FishingHooks #roads #drivers #IntroducedSpecies #pets #dogs #ExtinctionCrisis #SettlerSociety
The cost of preventing extinction of Australia’s priority species
"It would cost $15.6 billion per year for 30 years to prevent extinction for 99 of Australia’s priority species. The cost to reverse the decline of priority species and undo damage done by habitat loss, disease and other threats was estimated at $103.7 billion annually, while getting them off the threatened list entirely would require $157.7 billion per year.”
"Biodiversity loss and ecosystems collapse is ranked by the World Economic Forum as the second most significant global risk over the next decade, with 50 per cent of the global economy dependent on nature. " >>
https://news.griffith.edu.au/2025/02/04/the-cost-of-preventing-extinction-of-australias-priority-species/
Australians spent over $33 billion on their pets last year.
https://www.dogster.com/statistics/pet-spending-statistics-australia
#biodiversity #ecosystems #extinction #risks #wildlife #SettlerSociety #pets #Australia #NaturePositive #values
"To be different without fear."
T.W. Adorno, Minima Moralia
"The referendum, Mr Sivaraman said, had "mainstreamed a torrent of racism" and emboldened people to "immediately challenge" any small measure granting self-determination to Indigenous people. People feel like the defeat of the Voice has given them licence to espouse their racist views...Racism towards First Nations people within Australia had been a "constant" for 238 years that "escalated dramatically" when there was something to attach it to, like cultural heritage protections or the Voice referendum."
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-20/mt-arapiles-plan-triggers-racism-towards-aboriginal-people/104604286
'Freedom is no fear.’ Nina Simone/ Nicholas Payton
https://visualizingabolition.ucsc.edu/exhibitions/music-for-abolition.html#sleepwalkers
#referendum #IndigenousPeoples #FirstNations #voice #silence #CulturalLandscape #sacred #respect #SettlerSociety #WhiteRage #violence #racism #safety #discrimination #denial #backlash #tolerance for #ambiguity #AuthoritarianPersonality #fear #loss #mountains #climbing #industry #Australia #freedom
HOME UNSETTLED
Settlers are detached from the land and mostly mistake "Little boxes made of ticky tacky" as 'home.' But now
"Climate change is forcing us to rethink our sense of ‘home’ – and what it means to lose it."
Val Plumwood ... "argues that, under capitalism, the idea of personal belonging to a particular place or dwelling is often framed as being more important than many other vital attachments to place, such as connection to land. She uses the term “shadow places” to describe the ecosystems we exclude and exploit – including our forests and waterways – even though they are fundamental to our existence. These places provide essential labour, nourishment and the conditions we need to survive and flourish. For Plumwood, an expanded sense of “home” would encompass the broader ecological context we exist within."
" Indigenous Australian law scholar Irene Watson explains colonisers were already alienated from a sense of connection to land when they came to “Australia”. This disconnection led them to plunder the land, treating it as a commodity rather than a living, complex ecosystem that nurtures and is nurtured by First Nations peoples."
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https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-forcing-us-to-rethink-our-sense-of-home-and-what-it-means-to-lose-it-247234
Malvina Reynolds - Little boxes on the hillside, Full Version with Lyrics >>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoXtddNPAM
#Country #IndigenousPeoples #care #displacement #land #privatisation #commodification #LandSpeculation #landlordism #rentierisation #SettlerSociety #suburbia #housing #sprawl #homeplace #ClimateBreakdown #values #australia #NativeForests #plunder #ecosystems #biodiversity #ExtinctionCrisis #FossilFuels #extractivism #loss #home
Country Knowledge through Space, Time and Mobility
Mindful journey or instrumental reason?
At any Australian coast one usually hears the drone of speeding tinnies or even jet ski. Run by fossil fuel they are loud, fast and polluting. Fishermen, like car drivers operate in the 'getting things done’ modus.
But the acceleration of motorised (maritime) mobility is not conductive to the encounter between people and Country.
Indigenous Australians are renewing and maintaining the slow quiet movement of canoes to allow a different people-place relation.
“Moving faster can unsettle the possibilities for interaction that involves sitting near, listening, observing and engaging…The point is that the way we move is intimately connected to the way we know.”
>>
Transport study reveals why journey is as important as the destination
https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/transport-study-reveals-why-journey-is-as-important-as-the-destination
#mobility #maritime #motorboats #boats #tinnies #cars #FossilFuels #noise #pollution #technology #speed #SocialAcceleration #canoes #IndigenousPeoples #IndigenousAustralians #IndigenousKnowledge #mindful #journey #SettlerSociety
Confronting devastating destruction
"Since Europeans arrived in Australia, much of the country has become severely degraded."
"Around 40% of our forests and 99% of grasslands have been cut down and cleared, and much of what remains is under threat. Thousands of ecological communities, plants and animal species are threatened with extinction."
"Australia remains a global logging and deforestation hotspot. We have the world’s worst record for mammal extinctions and lead the world in arresting climate and environment protesters. To top it off, a recent study estimated more than 9,000 native Australian animals, mostly invertebrates, have gone extinct since European arrival. That’s between one and three species every week."
>>
https://theconversation.com/in-2025-lets-make-it-game-on-not-game-over-for-our-precious-natural-world-245761
#LoggingImpacts #LandClearing #deforestation #mining #degradation #extractivism #SettlerSociety #coal #climate #FossilFuels #BiodiversityCrisis #extinction #EcologicalGrief #destruction #conservation #change #Australia #NYE
How can one get lost on a closed summit track?
"A large-scale search was launched on Sunday for Queensland doctor Csaba Varga, 54, at Wollumbin/Mount Warning." The search "focused on a steep, overgrown track that leads to the summit of the mountain, which has been closed to the public since 2020." The "summit track, is regarded as sacred to the Aboriginal community and remains closed to the public."
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-11/queensland-doctor-hiker-wollumbin-mount-warning-found-nsw/104713108
#MountainClimbing #climbing #mountains #summit #respect #Wollumbin #MountWarning #NSW #RescueMe #Queensland #SettlerSociety #sacred #IndigenousPeoples #BundjalungNation #NationalParks #conservation #biodiversity
Urban sprawl is destroying wildlife habitats
The sub-urban package of houses, cars, roads and introduced pets drives Australian native animals out of their habitat. Their homes become eliminated or fragmented by roads which become extinction zones for wildlife. Unleashed cats and dogs maul the remaining homeless survivors.
The absolute priority is given to fossil fuel vehicles to fly from a to b at maximum speed. This entails a mobility design that declares any living body an obstacle on 'their path'. Some of the maimed crash survivors get scraped off the roads by volunteers. In some places wildlife admissions at the vet hospital had risen by 400 per cent in the last decade. It's a mono-cultural housing and infrastructure design where bio-diversity is non-existent in minds and policies.
"More wildlife was being forced into urban areas, leading to collisions with vehicles, attacks by domestic animals, and entanglements in fruit netting. Experts say behavioural changes need to be made and urban sprawl contained to reduce the harm to wildlife."
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-24/werribee-zoo-injured-wildlife-urban-sprawl-melb-geelong/104614358
#sprawl #ecocide #cars #crashes #roads #BiodiversityCrisis #wildlife #coexist #extinction #SacrificeZone #harm #MobilityDesign #RescueService #volunteers #SettlerSociety #biodiversity
Native freshwater fish at risk of extinction
"More than one-third (37%) of our freshwater fish species are at risk of extinction, including 35 species not even listed as threatened...At present, 63 freshwater fish species are on Australia’s national list of species declared as threatened under federal environmental law."
"Invasive fish such as brown and rainbow trout are the biggest driver of native fish loss...Australia’s southern states are greatly adding to the problem by releasing millions of trout into waterways each year for recreational fishers...The other major threats facing native fish are agriculture and aquaculture (38%), pollution (38%), hunting and fishing (19%), energy production and mining (17%), and urban development (13%)."
"In 2022, the Australian government made a commitment to end extinctions. Our study provides a blueprint for how to do that for our overlooked native freshwater fish."
>>
https://theconversation.com/troubled-waters-how-to-stop-australias-freshwater-fish-species-from-going-extinct-242950
#fishes #biodiversity #conservation #rivers #extinction #InvasiveSpecies #trout #fishing #RecreationalFishers #sport #agriculture #aquaculture #pollution #mining #DynamiteBlasting #SettlerSociety #sprawl #EPBCAct #IUCN
Dreaming of a Megacity stretching from Cairns to Melbourne
"An Australian East Coast Megaregion to boost economic growth and attract foreign investment...We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to achieve urban development at a scale and in a form that can transform Australia’s settlement system."
https://theconversation.com/how-our-regions-can-help-make-australias-growing-cities-more-sustainable-240330
#Sprawl #LandConsumption #biodiversity #ClimateBreakdown #ExtinctionCrisis #SettlerSociety
Australia's semantic struggles over a "one and only" reality or a pluriverse?
From the 'heart of darkness' to the “sanitised” articles of sub/urban place names.
"Some (Wikipedia) editors told us they felt it was their responsibility to include First Nations’ perspectives, even though they met with heavy resistance. One, Lucas, had repeatedly tried to include First Nations place names, often unsuccessfully. He no longer edits Wikipedia. “I just ran out of energy for it”...One or two editors “were going around removing Aboriginal place names from all the articles about Australia and Australian places”.
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https://theconversation.com/we-analysed-35-000-wikipedia-entries-about-australian-places-some-sanitised-history-others-privileged-fiction-over-reality-241364
#wikipedia #SettlerSociety #Australia #SocialImaginary #ImaginedCommunity #fiction #violence #FirstNations #TruthTelling #naming #IndigenousKnowledge #pluriverse #EditWars #WorldMaking #EpistemicInjustice #language #framing #worldviews #AI
The tyranny of automobility and sprawl
While the Bellingen /Gleniffer area is transitioning from an ‘idyllic tourist town’ into a ‘normal Aussie suburb’ (of Coffs Harbour), road congestion gets everyone stuck in traffic.
Car dependent motorists in their SUVs and bloated oversized trucks demand more and wider roads, larger car parking and a right to pothole-free roads for their 'sports utility vehicles’.
Extreme commuting for the necessaries of life are conducted in big private vehicles powered by fossil fuel. An aggregate of ugly big-box stores (large format retail, Coffs) with hostile giant car parks deliver what consumers desire. These consumption hubs are mostly inaccessible to pedestrians and can be dangerous ‘non-places’ (Marc Augé).
The mobility design of old school traffic engineers responds to the sprawling expansion with more of the same: more roads, wider roads and bypassing the last bypass. They call it ‘upgrades’.
As the latest $2.2 billion highway or forest road ‘upgrade/s’ are blasting their way through the landscape, they are silent about the ‘public bads’: the destroyed biodiversity habitat, the downgraded neighbourhoods, the violence and the polluted biosphere.
The ‘normality’ of automobility, or the 'car in the head' in petromodernity together with regulatory inertia make a transition to alternative land uses, energy systems, mobilities and ways of being a challenge.
