AUSTRALIA ENVIRONMENT

ENVIRONMENT

AUSTRALIA

Australian Fishing industry catches an unsustainable 30,000 tons of fish, valued at approximately $1.2 billion AUS. With 90% of the world’s largest fish slowly being eradicated. (1/03)

There are 430 life species being lost from salientiated waters, with Australia having the most serious problem. Dry land salientian is our major problem followed by coastal blue algae. Interestingly, with Australia being the driest continent in the world Australians are the highest water users (pro-rata) in the world. (5/03)

Approximately 15 tons of Green House rubbish pollutants dumped each year in NSW, finding that less than 700,000 homes contribute to most of it. (10/02)

Australian environmentalists collect approximately 1 ton of illegal debris every year. With over 1 trillion cigarette butts going into our waterways and seas. The toxins are so strong that it takes up to 15 years to break down. (11/03)

Eight thousand tons of illegal debris was collected on Clean up Australia Day 2004. (Ch 7)

Four million tons of rubbish is collected just in NSW each year with Sydney running out of disposal space within the next 3 years. (03)

East Coast Australia and Sydney in particular were, on the 6/12/02 was surrounded by 64 fires during the hottest, driest drought in the last 50 years.

More than half the plastic bags disposed of each year comes from supermarkets. Less than 1% of these are reused and depending one thickness etc, take up to 20 years to decompose. Research indicates that charging for bags could reduce plastic bag refuge by 90%.

In December 2002 while NSW temperatures and fires escalated, Mount Hotham had its coldest summer ever; (it snowed).

Greenhouse emissions in Australia are sadly lagging behind. Australia has not ratified the 1997 UN Kyoto protocol of 8% reduction. Interestingly neither has the USA.

Australia in general and a leaked document of the Murray Darling system is suffering from diminishing water necessities and our growing blue algae problem. The present actions to improve these problems at the cost of AU$6 million may not improve the problem in the long run. Farmers in South Australia in recent droughts have paid up to $400 a megalitre to lease water from NSW and $350 from other parts of South Australia. Considering we are one of the driest continents in the world can you imagine what essential water access could cost us in the future?

Global warming is increasing the numbers of some of our most deadly species. For example the deadly red back spider whose natural predators, birds have change a lot of their migratory patterns. Red backs etc are breeding more frequently each year, more are surviving. Similarly in Victoria the once common grey headed flying fox numbers about 80,000 whereby the once rare black species seem to be increasing their numbers. (10/03)

Melbourne Victoria had its worst storm in 100 years on the night

of the 2^nd December 03.