What's the state of Australia and SEQ's environment?
Australia’s overall Environmental Condition Score and individual states’ scores
Australia’s Environment 2023 Report is in, and our country’s overall Environmental Condition Score has dropped by 1.2. Perhaps more concerning is SEQ’s individual score which took a higher hit with a drop of 4.2 compared to 2022. The message of decline is balanced by the strong messaging that when we act with protection and conservation activities, we can bend the curve of decline.
In 2023, Australia endured its eighth hottest year on record, beginning with wet conditions and average temperatures due to La Niña influences. |
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The number of threatened species increased sharply, primarily as a delayed effect of the 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires. |
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The evidence is mounting that when we enact protection and invest in conservation, we can bend the curve of decline. |
Despite most environmental indicators declining somewhat from the very high values in 2022, they remained well above average throughout the year, contributing to an overall Environmental Condition Score (ECS) of 7.5, which is still the second-highest score since 2011 after the high score in 2022.
How is the ESC score calculated?
As explained on the official website, the Environmental Condition Score is a score between 0 and 10 expressing condition relative to previous years. It is calculated as the average rankings of component scores (from top to bottom in the bar graph below): inundation, streamflow (blue), vegetation growth, leaf area, soil protection, tree cover (green) and the number of hot days (orange).
State of the environment – some highlights for Australia
Below the main data reported on Australia’s State of the Environment:
- 2023 was a year of opposites. It had a wet start then some dry and unseasonably warm months and towards the end of the year some wet conditions again.
- Over the year, rainfall was near average but May to October were very dry and there were 82 days over 35° in 2023 averaged across Australia. That is about 6 days or 8% more than only a decade ago.
- The oceans around Australia were warmer than average but not as warm as the previous year and the recovery of the Great Barrier Reef stabilised with no bleaching events.
- In 2023 Australia's population reached 27 million people in 2023. That's up from 19 million people in 2000 that is a 41% increase.
- Australia's emissions are very high by world standards and went up again after falling for four years. Increased emissions from transport were the main reason.
- River flows, wetlands and water reservoirs all declined from the very high 2022 levels but were still well above average.
- Soil moisture across much of Australia declined quite steeply after a wet start to year but increased again during the last few months.
- Leaf vegetation area was less than the previous year, but still above average and vegetation growth conditions were very good almost everywhere thanks to good water availability and warm sunny winter months.
- A record of 130 species were added to the list of threatened species in 2023 bringing the total number to 2098, a 47% increase since 2000. Climate change was identified as a key threat to 87% of newly listed and uplisted species in 2023. For the remaining 13% of listed and uplisted species, extinction risk factors included can toad poisoning, habitat loss, myrtle rust and water extraction. The threatened species index estimates changes in the abundance of threatened and near-threatened species with a three-year lag.
A major update for threatened birds in 2023 revealed continuous and compounding declines across the country and terrestrial birds showed the greatest declines since 2000 with declines for migratory shorebirds and marine birds being less severe but still concerning.
The trends for threatened mammals and plants tell a similar story of decline but with some stabilisation for our threatened mammal populations.
What are the numbers for SEQ?
We are working on it!
In recent years our unique and precious biodiversity remains under considerable pressure and this is set to increase in coming years as impacts worsen. The evidence is mounting that when we enact protection and invest in conservation, we can bend the curve of species decline. Read more in this interesting article from CSIRO.
Healthy Land & Water’s projects are spanning across a great range of conservation activities from land restoration and revegetation to threatened species preservation to ensure an environment for future generations to thrive in.
Here are some of them:
- Three Mile Scrub
- Riparian Weed Control Program
- Moreton Bay Ramsar Wetland Project
- Moreton Bay Shorebirds project
- Koala threat management South East Queensland
- Protecting koalas
- Lungfish habitat rehabilitation
- Bushfire recovery project
- Eastern bristlebirds – Bushfire rehabilitation
- Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Program
- Flood recovery for wildlife and habitat
- Conserving Greater and Yellow-bellied Gliders
- Grey-headed Flying Fox – Bushfire Rehabilitation
Resources:
https://www.wenfo.org/aer/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2023_Australias_Environment_Report_March2024_spreads.pdf
https://ausenv.tern.org.au/aer.html
https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2020/september/how-to-bend-the-curve-of-future-biodiversity-loss