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The Threatened Species Scientific Committee is seeking comments on the proposal to list this as a critically endangered ecological community. The public consultation period will be open until 12pm, Wednesday 17 February 2016; however earlier...

The Spring 2015 issue of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder Update is now available.

Lachlan River residents and visitors may notice small rises in the river due to environmental flows currently taking place and continuing until mid-December at Willandra Weir.

People applying for wildlife trade permits online may receive unsolicited email and attachments from the address ‘noreply@industry.gov.au’.

Earth has these ‘natural occurrences’ that devastate homes and villages. But are they really natural occurrences? Sounds more like outbursts of a maniac

If this planet exploded tomorrow I wouldn’t shed a tear.

Environmentalists say evil mankind is destroying a beautiful God-given place. Really? Mudslides, earthquakes and twisters kill millions (thousands) of people every year. Innocent planet? I judge by deeds not words. Yes, pollutants kill. But so do rockslides. If you talk to the average resident of a natural disaster location, they will be glad to tell you the planet has done as much evil as the average multinational in terms of lives taken in their local community.

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Application on ecological sustainability - Call for public comments open 25 November 2015 until 24 December 2015.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: If you love smiley faces you'll weep tears of joy about the news we're about to get more emojis! Dr Karl reveals who holds the ultimate emoji power.

Comments are sought on the draft varied threat abatement plan for competition and land degradation by rabbits. Comments close 16 March 2016.

The Minister has approved the addition of Callistemon megalongensis, Phyllurus gulbaru, Ordtrachia septentrionalis, to the Critically Endangered category and Eucalyptus aggregate to the Vulnerable category effective 17 November 2015.

Reef Trust Tender – Burdekin offers funding to sugar cane farmers in the Burdekin NRM region to improve nitrogen and irrigation management practices on their farms. Expression of interest stage open until 7 December 2015.

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has sold 22.864 gigalitres of Commonwealth environmental water allocations for a return of $6.458 million that will be used to improve the environment of the Murray Darling Basin.

Australian environmental group asks court in Sydney to find Japanese whalers in contempt of a 2008 ruling banning fleet from the Southern Ocean

Environmental campaigners are launching a last-ditch legal attempt to prevent Japan from slaughtering whales in the Antarctic this winter, after Tokyo indicated it would ignore a ban on its “scientific” expeditions.

The Australian branch of Humane Society International (HSI) will on Wednesday ask the federal court in Sydney to find Kyodo Senpaku, the Japanese company that organises the hunts, in contempt of a 2008 ruling that banned the whaling fleet from hunting in an area of the Southern Ocean that Australia recognises as a whale sanctuary.

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The banning of fishing in a newly created Pacific marine sanctuary will help stocks recover and attract high-end tourist dollars as a replacement source of income

The recent decision by the Pacific island nation of Palau to end fishing in a California-sized swath of tuna-rich ocean comes at a time of record overfishing and will help the populations of bigeye and yellowfin to recover, scientists say.

Officials hope that the new reserve will boost sustainable tourism revenues as well as fish populations, as ordinary divers and even snorkelers will be able to experience the difference that protection measures can make.

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GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: Seeing a plane get off the ground is an amazing sight! Dr Karl investigates the science of flying planes.

Analysis of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation health charity, and 13 other major funds, reveals moving investments out of coal, oil and gas and into green companies would have generated billions in higher returns

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would have had $1.9bn (£1.3bn) more to spend on its lifesaving health projects if it had divested from fossil fuels and instead invested in greener companies, according to a new analysis.

The Canadian research company Corporate Knights examined the stock holdings of 14 funds, worth a combined $1tn, and calculated how they would have performed if they had dumped shares in oil, coal and gas companies three years ago.

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How can we Engineer a steady state economy?

A competitive tender for groundwater purchasing will be conducted in Queensland’s Upper Condamine Alluvium, with a budget of up to $10 million. The tender will open at 9am AEDT on 30 November 2015 and will close at 5pm AEDT on 10 February 2016.

The sparkles from fireworks last a few seconds but the air pollution can linger in our cities for hours.

Firework smoke is rich in tiny metal particles making it very different to normal urban air pollution. These metals are used to make firework colours in much the same way as Victorian scientists identified chemicals by burning them in a Bunsen flame; red from strontium or lithium, blue from copper and bright green or white from barium compounds.

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As the world prepares for the UN Paris climate summit, the world is at a tipping point. But a political and scientific revolution could yet save it

We Homo sapiens got lucky. Very lucky. Back in the 1920s, when looking for a “safe” gas to use in refrigerators, chlorine was the element of choice in a new family of manmade chemical compounds – chlorofluorocarbons. In the 1970s, Paul Crutzen, Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland discovered that while it was safe in our fridges, it was destroying the ozone layer, which is essential to protect all life on land.

Luck struck twice. Nasa scientists measuring ozone above Antarctica in the 1980s never saw the ozone hole in their data. Their computers were programmed to ignore any figures deemed “impossible”. Luckily, the British Antarctic Survey had no such technology and sounded the alarm. In 1987, nations signed the Montreal Protocol outlawing CFCs.

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