# data[].attributes.body
Current State

-       Vulnerable to climate change and increased population growth

-       Adequate national strategies and policies are being placed currently

Current Trend

-       Loss of native vegetation

o   Cleared

o   Increased bushfires

o   Increase in invasive species

-       Improvement to agricultural practices

-       Continues Urban Expansion

-       Decrease in mining activities

-       Reduced alienation of agricultural land

-       Increase in conservation areas

Challenges

-       Government should priorities the demands of the growing population by applying measures and creating resources without compromising the long-term requirement of the ecosystem

Discussion is framed around?

-       Eco-efficiency

# data[].attributes.body
Summary: Bad and getting worse, with little hope for improvement on current trends and a swathe of tokenistic action. There have been some examples of improvements.

“Up the proverbial creek without a paddle”

Current State

·         No neat encapsulation of the current state of biodiversity – information is expressed in trend terms

·         Biodiversity threatened by several pressures – climate changes, invasive species, human habitat (eg, urgan expansion)

·         Monitoring and data are inadequate, and our understanding of species is minimal for some groups

·         Current resourcing is inadequate to arrest the decline

Trends

·         Deteriorating  trends and increasing pressures in biodiversity generally

·         Speed of biodiversity protection is not keeping pace with scale and magnitude of the problem

·         Increasing pressure due to the interaction of existing threats –fire and cats

·         Report notes improved use of Indigenous management techniques, though there is little detail of what this means in practice

·         Increased national reserve system – but “progress is needed in “attaining comprehensiveness”,, ie, current programs are nominal in nature, approaching tokenistic

·         Improvement in technologies provides some scope for improvement

Challenges

·         In several areas, frameworks are in place, but aren’t necessarily delivering on– lack of detail for implementation, lack of resources – eg, Indigenous Protected Areas

·         Lack efficient methods  – governments switch between programs and resources are not sustained

·         $$$$$ Management will require “major reinvestments” across long timeframes to reverse worsening trends. This is often not prioritised in Government budgets.

Environmentalism

·         Eco-efficiency: Intro talks about importance of biodiversity for subsistence, focus on biodiversity as a value that benefits society

·         Wilderness: References new reserves as a positive development; report doesn’t seek extensive justification for protecting biodiversity, and while intro talks about ‘national identity’ it also values protection of micro-organisms that are not key to an ‘image’ of Australia.

·         Environmental Justice: National identity, Indigenous management .

# data[].attributes.body
Current state- Australia's population is highly urbanised with growth in major cities leading to higher densities. There is an increasing need for improving liveability in these regions while supporting the growth of population in a sustainable way. With roughly forty percent of the Australian population living in major cities, these present significant challenges to be overcome. the  report gives a mixed outlook about the built environment.

Challenges/

*  Population growth in major cities

* More rural land is being consumed because of continuing urbanisation

* Threats to the urban environment along the coast because of sea level rise

Australian cities are continuing to expand despite infill policies placing pressure on all natural resources

* Traffic congestion is major issue issue in most big Australian cities

* Waste generation is high but recovery rates are in the rise.
* Reduced Levels of waste produced by individuals going into landfill

Improved water and energy efficiency

* Lack of coordination between tiers of government and the private sector

Evidence of environmental philosophies:

Majority of document is framed in terms of Eco efficiency with a focus on consumption and waste generation.

Environmental justice aspects include pollution issues affecting certain populations eg young and older people, remote indigenous communities

Population growth is resulting in loss of green space for inner city and long journeyed to people living on city outskirts

Outlook

Lack of corordination and integration between tiers of government is acknowledged and recent initiatives by the Australian government are designed to provide additional frameworks and processes to improve coordination  and leadership.
Trend toward water and energy efficiencies despite growing population

# data[].attributes.body
Current state:

Climate change:

-sign Paris agreement

-Reduce emission 26%-28% below 2005 levels by 2030

-Rely on fossil fuel

Air quality:

-change the national standard

-PM10 rarely exceed standard /PM2.5 frequently exceed

-stronger air quality standard

-levels of lead and nitrogen dioxide have declined markedly

-ozone level remained stable

current trend:

Climate change:

-Emission will continue to contribute to climate change.

-The world is warming/ declining rainfall/ Increase heatwave/ Longer drought/ Flooding from more intense storm activity/ Sea level rise/ Leading to costal damage/ Loss of ecosystems

Air quality

-monitoring pollution/ improve emission-control technologies

Challenge:

Air quality:

-Lack of understanding of formation of fine particles/ climate change/ population growth

Climate change

-uncertainty of policy

-involve significant transformations in political, economic and socio-technical systems.

Currents of environmentalism

AQ: eco-efficiency

Climate change: Environmental justice/ eco-efficiency

# data[].attributes.body
Current state:
- Relatively good condition
- Focus on natural heritage over historical/indigenous heritage
- Approaches are not consistent
- Lack of a full data set

Current trends:
- Increasing population
- Climate change
- Increasing involvement of indigenous populations in preservation of natural and historical heritage
- Decline in specialised workforce affects historic heritage

Challenges:
- Tourism (sustainable)
- Climate change
- Economic growth
- Population changes
- Not adhering to regulation
- Loss of knowledge (esp in indigenous cultures)
- Lack of proper protection mechanisms (esp. indigenous heritage)
- Need to increase support from government and communities for strategies and policies
- Resources (e.g. government and local funding)
- Need for data to assess metrics

Environmentalism:
Aspects of all three

# data[].attributes.body
Current state:
- Mixed state where areas which are not affected by development and resource extraction (west) are in a good state, while those which are, are in a degraded state.
- Areas in a degraded state are facing: loss of biodiversity, habitat fragmentation, invasive species, contamination and erosion.

Current trends

Population growth near coast.

Increasing resource extraction and contamination

Introduction of invasive species

Increased climate change impacts e.g.rising water temperature, coral bleaching, rising sea levels, erosion.

Continued development near coast lines

challenges

Upstream effects

Lack of data

Need for implementation of strategies to mitigate effects of climate change in the short term.

Lack of national coordination and management.

Difficulty of understanding cumulative impacts

Lack of documentation of indigenous heritage

Environmentalism: Elements of all three

Wilderness: Focus on health of coastal environments

Eco-efficiency: Focus on benefit for human use

Environmental Justice: Consideration of lack of indigenous documentation of coastal environments

# data[].attributes.body
Current state

unregulated or varying monitoring methods. Poor quality in general

Surface water level dropped form >80% to <50% (more than 30%) within 5 years from 2011

Current trends

projected with increased usage

more groundwater quality information available

reform process has slowed

water quality trends are either stable or unclear across the country

Challenges

Groundwater will be at risk of storage due to irregular climate patterns (replenishment rate <<< extraction rate)

Readily available water quality but without interpretation, basically useless to the general public now

dealing with impact of climate change (as a driver)

Evident Env Lenses

Wilderness

Biodiversity,

Eco-efficiency

approx. 75%, focus on agricultural and urban water usage

Env justice

Cultural water sources

Need more awareness