Online abuse and bearing witness to the destruction of what many of us know (and love) intimately can take a heavy toll on scientists and environmental advocates. But the choices we make now will determine the future we inherit. Far from feeling that all is lost, Euan Ritchie urges all to speak and act for the voiceless, to care for and defend what you love.

Air pollution can alter the regulation of immune systems, stunt lung development, and increase blood pressure, demonstrating that even at a young age, human immune, respiratory, and cardiovascular systems are negatively impacted by exposure. Even before birth, the growth, development, and overall health of unborn babies is impacted. So what can we do about it?

Working adaptively with fire as a tool for ecological health can help us to prevent the extinction of flora species across Victoria’s ecosystems. Ella Plumanns Pouton (University of Melbourne/Deakin University) works to understand how fire regimes support different plants across their whole life cycle, providing a vital scientific foundation for fire management practices that respond to the unfolding global biodiversity crisis.

Feral deer are capable of increasing 35 to 50 percent each year in population. Peter Jacobs tells us “there is no short-term fix to mitigate deer impacts now that the population has been allowed to grow to over a million animals spread across the state.” But Victorians can still prevent the further spread of destructive invasive deer species to the rest of the Australian continent.

The unassuming frontage along Blackburn Road in Clayton, Victoria, masks a hidden gem of Australian research infrastructure. Long gone is 1957’s iconic Clayton Metro Twin drive-in theatre. Today, the twin projectors have been replaced with a state-of-the-art light source a million times brighter than the Sun; a particle accelerator the size of a football field, the Australian Synchrotron.