Environmental issues in Australia

Environmental issues in Australia describes a number of environmental issues which affect the environment of Australia and are the primary concern of the environmental movement in Australia.
There are a range of such issues, some of the relating to conservation in Australia. Others, for example the deteriorating state of Murray–Darling Basin, have a direct and serious effect on human land use and the economy. Many human activities including the use of natural resources have a direct impact on the Australian environment and its ecology. Additionally Aboriginal culture has a strong connection to the land, with some landscape features considered sacred, and as such environmental damage to Australian Aboriginal sacred sites can also have significant cultural repercussions.
Some of the key issues include: climate change; contamination and pollution; ozone depletion; conservation; invasive species; land degradation; waterway health; urbanisation and mining issues among others.

Climate change

Attribution, Public concerns and Emissions reduction

Australia ranks within the top ten countries globally with respect to greenhouse gas emissions per capita.
The current federal and state governments have all publicly stated their belief that climate change is being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Vocal minority groups within the population campaign against mining and coal-fired power stations in Australia, and such demonstrations are widely reported by the mainstream media. Similarly, vocal minority groups concurrently oppose wind energy schemes, despite being 'carbon neutral', on the grounds of local visual and noise impact and concern for the currently high cost and low reliability of wind energy.
Despite the publication of the Garnaut report and the Green Paper on the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, public belief in anthropogenic climate change has noticeably eroded following the leaking of e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit. Nevertheless recent climate events such as extremely high temperatures and widespread drought have focused government and public attention on the effects.
There is claimed to be a net benefit to Australia in stabilising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at 450ppm CO₂ eq in line with the prevailing political stance. Public disagreement with this opinion is generally dismissed as expression of vested interests, for example from the coal industry.

Energy use

Most of Australia's demand for electricity depends upon coal-fired thermal generation, owing to the plentiful indigenous coal supply, limited potential electric generation and political unwillingness to exploit indigenous uranium resources (although Australia accounted for the world's second highest production of uranium in 2005 to fuel a 'carbon neutral' domestic nuclear energy program.
Australia does not require its vehicles to meet any fuel efficiency standards, in spite of its emissions reduction target under the Paris Agreement.

Contamination and pollution

Australia is affected by significant contamination and pollution including soil and goundwater contamination as well as water and air pollution. Researchers currently estimate that between 16,000 and 80,000 significantly sites have been identified as affected by up to 7,500 different contaminants. Some of these are toxic byproducts of government land use and private industry. The country has several notable exclusion zones due to heavy contamination. Some substances have significant half-lifes, making remediation and sequestering expensive and complicated. There is also a serious ongoing risk of contamination incidents particularly from mining-related activities.
Significant types of contamination affecting Australia include:

plastics – Australia produces 2.5m tonnes of plastic per year, about 84% is sent to landfill. Estimated 130,000 tonnes of plastic waste leaks into the environment annually.
hydrocarbons – more than 16,000 significant sites
herbicides and pesticides – more than 3,500 significant sites identified
heavy metals – including lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury across thousands of significant urban and remote sites
radioactive elements in soils and radioactive waste – more than 100 significant sites including large exclusion zones due to high radiation levels from nuclear fallout, high risk of nuclear contamination due to a significant nuclear element mining industry, more than 5000 cubic metres of radioactive waste which requires long term safe handling, more than 46 cubic metres generated each year
per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – more than 90 significant sites identified requiring remediation particularly government training centres and surrounding catchments from use of fire fighting foams
asbestos – over 6.2 million tonnes across more than 50 significant major urban sites and several exclusion zones in remote locations
landfill leachate
diesel exhaust and wood smoke persisting for long periods in ambient air in both urban areas and remote locations contribute to 4,880 premature deaths every year
Ozone depletion

Due to its position in the Southern Hemisphere close to Antarctica, Australia is one of the parts of the world most affected by ozone depletion, which results in dangerous increases to solar radiation, particularly ultraviolet radiation. Increased UV levels compromise the genetic integrity and immune systems of living organisms, impairs photosynthesis, contributes to climate change, and to one of the highest mortality rates of skin cancer in the world. It is generally believed that the Montreal Protocol has helped alleviate anthropogenic ozone depletion by banning destructive chlorofluorocarbon emissions, and this has helped protect Australia from exposure to catastrophic levels of UV radiation. Though the "hole" in the ozone which the Protocol sought to prevent has not reached Australia, it has experienced significant sustained thinning at its latitudes, causing elevated levels of solar irradiation. Increased incidence of large scale bushfires in Australia has contributed to recent ozone depletion, contributing to a sort of solar irradiation feedback loop.

Conservation

in Australia is an issue of state and federal policy. Australia is one of the most biologically diverse countries in the world, with a large portion of species endemic to Australia. Preserving this wealth of biodiversity is important for future generations.
In Australia forest cover is around 17% of the total land area, equivalent to 134,005,100 hectares of forest in 2020, up from 133,882,200 hectares in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 131,614,800 hectares and planted forest covered 2,390,300 hectares. Of the naturally regenerating forest 0% was reported to be primary forest and around 18% of the forest area was found within protected areas. For the year 2015, 67% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership, 32% private ownership and 1% with ownership listed as other or unknown.
A key conservation issue is the preservation of biodiversity, especially by protecting the remaining rainforests. The destruction of habitat by human activities, including land clearing, remains the major cause of biodiversity loss in Australia. The importance of the Australian rainforests to the conservation movement is very high. Australia is the only western country to have large areas of rainforest intact. Forests provide timber, drugs, and food and should be managed to maximise the possible uses. Currently, there are a number of environmental movements and campaigners advocating for action on saving the environment, one such campaign is the Big Switch.
Land management issues including clearance of native vegetation, reafforestation of once-cleared areas, control of exotic weeds and pests, expansion of dryland salinity, acid sulphate soils,<, and changed fire regimes. Intensification of resource use in sectors such as forestry, fisheries, and agriculture are widely reported to contribute to biodiversity loss in Australia. Coastal and marine environments also have reduced biodiversity from reduced water quality caused by pollution and sediments arising from human settlements and agriculture. In central New South Wales where there are large plains of grassland, problems have risen from—unusual to say—lack of land clearing.
The Daintree Rainforest, a tropical rainforest near Daintree, Queensland covering around 1200 square kilometres, is threatened by logging, development, mining and the effects of the high tourist numbers.
There are some government programs in Australia which are the opposite of conservation ; an example of this is shark culling, which currently occurs in New South Wales and Queensland.

Native fauna

Over a hundred species of fauna are currently under serious threat of extinction. The plight of some of these species receives more attention than others and recently the focus of many conservation organisations has been the critically endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat, the endangered Tasmanian devil, northern tiger quoll, south eastern red-tailed black cockatoo, southern cassowary, Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, Leadbeater's possum and southern corroboree frog.
Australia has a poor record of conservation of native fauna. The extinction of Australian megafauna is partially attributed to the arrival of humans and since European settlement, 23 birds, 4 frogs, and 27 mammal species are also known to have become extinct.

Marine conservation

One of the notable issues with marine conservation in Australia is the protection of the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef's environmental pressures include water quality from runoff, climate change and mass coral bleaching, cyclic outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish, overfishing, and shipping accidents. The government of Queensland currently kills sharks in the Great Barrier Reef using drum lines, causing damage to the marine ecosystem.
In 2021 Australia announced the creation of 2 national marine parks in size of 740,000 square kilometres. With those parks 45% of the Australian marine territory will be protected.