Realms of Land & Sea

 Australia's Environment : Issues and Trends - Australian Bureau of Statistics

♦ Land: Australia’s landscape has been highly modified since European settlement. Native
vegetation, which provides a protective cover for the land, has been removed or degraded
in many areas due to urbanisation, agriculture, mining, pastoralism and infrastructure
development. Altering land from its natural state inevitably results in changes to soil health
and landscape functionality. If persistent, these changes can lead to environmental
problems and rapid deterioration of both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

Biodiversity: Australia is home to more than one million species, many of which are
endemic – that is, they are found only in Australia. Globally, Australia is recognised as one
of 17 “mega-diverse” countries, with ecosystems of exceptional variety and uniqueness.
Changes to the landscape and native habitat as a result of human activity have put many of
these unique species at risk. Ideally, the trends would consider all Australian biodiversity –
the abundance and diversity of micro-organisms, plants and animals, the genes they contain
and the ecosystems which they form. To measure change as comprehensively as this would
be difficult, if not impossible, and so here we focus on five trends. These trends are closely
linked to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cwlth) and
include: List of threatened fauna, List of threatened flora, List of threatened ecological
communities, Register of critical habitat, and List of key threatening processes.