Australia's environment poor and fading

* Australia's environment is in a poor state and it is deteriorating in the face of amplifying threats

* Ecological systems suffered abrupt changes in the five years to 2021 from the combined effects of threats such as climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and resource extraction

* Those pressures are not being adequately managed and will continue to result in extinctions and deteriorating ecosystem health

* Australia does not have a framework to deliver holistic environmental management across various levels of government, and across national, state and territory systems

* Australia's investment in biodiversity conservation doesn't match the scale of the challenge

LAND:

* Vegetation, soil, biodiversity, wetlands and rivers are all suffering from intense competition for resources

* 7.7 million hectares of habitat for land-based threatened species cleared between 2000 and 2017

* Almost all of that - 7.1 million hectares - was not assessed under federal environmental laws

BIODIVERSITY:

* Australia has lost more mammal species than any other continent and now has more foreign plant species than native ones

* The number of new species listed or up-listed to a higher category of threat has increased by eight per cent since 2016 and will jump again due to the Black Summer bushfires

* 377 plants and animals of national environmental significance have been added as threatened species in past 10 years

CLIMATE AND EXTREME WEATHER:

* Australian land temperatures have increased by 1.4C

* The 2018 heatwave killed 33,000 spectacled and black flying foxes in two days. Spectacled flying fox are now endangered

* Marine heatwaves caused mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016, 2017 and 2020

THE BLACK SUMMER BUSHFIRES:

* Burned more than eight million hectares of native vegetation, including nine per cent of the nation's koala habitat

* Killed or displaced between one and three billion animals

* Sediment and ash caused fish kills and hit marine species in coastal estuaries

INLAND WATER AND COASTS:

* Waterways, beaches, shorelines generally in poor condition near urban centres

* Water extraction and drought left the Murray Darling basin at record low level in 2019

* The Basin has seen devastating mass fish kills and shrinking bird populations; only two of 450 gigalitres promised under the basin plan have been delivered so far

URBAN:

* Cities suffering effects of strong growth including problems with urban heat, pollution, waste and water scarcity

* Waste going to landfill in NSW increased by 10 per cent over past 10 years, with hazardous waste almost doubling

* A lack of access to good quality water, particularly in the Northern Territory, is lowering life expectancies in remote communities

MARINE AND PLASTICS:

* Great Barrier Reef is at risk of being listed as a World Heritage site in danger after mass coral bleaching events in 2016, 2017 and 2020

* Reefs and associated species including fish in poor condition and deteriorating

* Up to 60,000 pieces of plastic found per square kilometre of water in Perth; between 40,000 and 80,000 in Brisbane

FIRST NATIONS AND HERITAGE:

* Destruction of Indigenous heritage is occurring at an unacceptable rate

* Poor overall state of Country hurting wellbeing of Indigenous peoples

* Environmental changes affecting abundance and distribution of culturally significant native plants and animals

ANTARCTICA:

* Antarctica's physical environment appears to be changing so fast it's beyond the adaptive abilities of organisms

* That appears especially true for higher order life forms including fish and birds

* Antarctic ecosystems are feeling the effects of ocean acidification, sea ice and wind strength changes, and changes in the circulation of the Southern Ocean

SOURCE: Overview section of the State of the Environment Report 2021

Australian Associated Press