Australia's 'top half' under threat

SOME of Australia's most beautiful landscapes will become a "shrinking façade" if authorities ignore deteriorating environmental conditions, according to new research.A four-year study into the natural environment of Australia’s North has revealed around 1.5 million square kilometres has been slowly deteriorating over the last century.The researchers studied the changes in the environment between Townsville and Broome, taking in the world famous Kakadu National Park and The Kimberley.“Without long-term and large-scale planning and without the sustained work of its land managers, the North’s natural values will wither and the distinctive character of Northern Australia will be reduced to a shrinking façade,” the ANU’s Nature of Northern Australia said. “Perhaps superficially there will still be extensive savanna, but with major impairment of the underlying and fundamental ecological processes that sustain it.”The report’s co-author, Brendan Mackey, said Australians shouldn’t let the top half of the continent deteriorate like the Murray-Darling Basin.“We need to have a reality check,” Professor Mackey said.“You can’t expect (strategies) that were used in the South to work in the North.”According to the study, climate change was just one of many environmental factors that will have a negative effect on the future of some of the world’s greatest natural regions, but Professor Mackey said the North could be used as a “buffer” for the South. He said that climate change has a greater impact to regions closer to the Poles and the Northern Australian environment could lessen the effect on the nation as a whole....
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As in the days of Noah...