ABC Environment

Join Indira Naidoo, Amelia Telford and David Suzuki in this discussion which considers our links with the natural world.

Millions of shorebirds fly between Australasia and the Arctic every year. They navigate over oceans using stars and magnetic fields, they sleep with half their brain at a time while they're on the wing. But for some of them, this will be the last flight.

Ornithologists and volunteer twitchers search Kakadu National Park for the endangered yellow chat; goats make a meal of weeds in the Bega Valley; we visit a dairy farm with a difference - this one milks camels.

Environmentalist and writer Tim Flannery has some thoughts about how we should treat our bodies of water and what we can learn from traditional Indigenous practices.

We search for bum-breathing turtles in the Mary River in Queensland; bait foxes in the remote and rugged Burrup Peninsular; and join citizen scientists looking for fungi in the Tarkine Forest.

David Suzuki says we are the first species in the history of life on Earth to have created the conditions for our own demise.

In 1945 the first Country Hour program went to air, and so began Australia's longest running radio program. We're looking back at the biggest agricultural stories to celebrate 70-plus years of ABC rural broadcasting. We begin in the 1940s and the start of the Snowy Mountains scheme.

We search for bum-breathing turtles in the Mary River in Queensland; bait foxes in the remote and rugged Burrup Peninsular; and join citizen scientists looking for fungi in the Tarkine Forest.

This summer, bushfires ravaged thousands of hectares of world heritage forest in Tasmania. Ancient species are in grave danger. We go to visit the fire fields.

What now for Straddie?

There's a problem. The seeds won't germinate and the plant is endangered. Could the answer lie in a heady mix of gauze gift bags, heat torture, forced smoke inhalation and emu digestive juices? This is a repeat episode from the Off Track archives.

'Most humans are smarter than a fox, and yet …'—What the Fox pays poetic attention to the population of red foxes with which we share our urban and suburban environments. While often unperceived, these hardy creatures—so well established in Australia—are deeply fascinating to the human ear, eye, and imagination.

Protesters in WA will head to the High Court today, in their latest attempt to stop construction of the Roe 8 highway extension in Perth.

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is one of a group of young people taking their government to court over inaction on climate change. But at the moment he's looking forward to a surf at Byron Bay.

A report out today says the movement to divest from fossil fuels is gaining traction, with the dollar value of funds avoiding fossil fuel investments doubling over the past year.

A former shearer turns his hand to growing native flowers in the Wimmera; scientists conduct a bio-blitz on Fraser Island; we spice up the day with a visit to a pepper farm; and meet a world champion tractor collector.

The 2016 Bragg Prize for science writing was won by Ashley Hay for her superb essay on Australian trees.

During the prolonged dry period between 1997 and 2010 37 species of birds declined significantly. Three years later, even with abundant water only 5 species showed signs of recovery.

Living out almost their entire life within cow pats, dung beetles are the unlikely heroes of both biological control AND Australian barbecues. This is a repeat episode from the Off Track archives.