One of the challenges of resolving the biodiversity crisis is making it a part of the Victorian community’s consciousness. In a world with so many competing problems, the silent destruction of our unique plants struggles for attention. Gordon Noble offers three simple “nudges” to drive investment in protecting and restoring Victoria’s flora.
Despite the changes that occurred after European settlement, Melbourne’s urban waterways still contain remnant ecosystems, which faintly echo the diversity they once displayed. In addition to their contribution to the city’s environmental values, urban waterways also provide important social, economic, and aesthetic benefits.
Our environment cannot bounce back from major petrochemical contamination, on top of the constant flow of waste from agriculture, textile factories and our homes. The cheap and easy approach to dealing with waste has been to simply bury it, which is unsustainable, especially as chemicals inevitably leech out into soils and waters. While thermal desorption removes contaminants, it also kills the soil. The best solution is bioremediation.
The home of the Eastern Barred Bandicoot once stretched from Melbourne to the South Australian border. In the 1970’s, the population dropped to around 1000 and then, within a decade, there were only 150 left. The last refuge of the EBBs was in Hamilton – one of the last places in Victoria they could be found in the wild. In 1988, the EBB Recovery Team was formed to respond to the continued population decline, and they had to act quickly.
Stewardship describes a deep relationship between people and place. In modern Australia, it is often proposed as the next step of transition for a culture that is emerging from a colonial, extractive relationship to the landscape. The transition to stewardship may require we reorganise around the unique characteristics of the country, undertake significant regeneration of damaged ecosystems and deprioritise constant economic growth in favour of an enduring sufficiency gathered from a prosperous and biologically diverse environment. Join members of all the Royal Societies in Australia for this unique series of three webinars, seeking a new model for the management of the Australian landscape so that our natural systems are conserved and regenerated for the benefit of future generations.
