Show caption ‘Not only have the warnings of scientists come to pass, the damage has been more severe and rapid than feared. The Great Barrier Reef has suffered four bleaching events in the last seven years alone.’ Photograph: Brett Monroe Garner/Getty Images Opinion We must end our command-and-control relationship with the environment if we are to arrest its destruction Euan Ritchie Despite the magnitude of Australia’s environmental decline, we still have the opportunity and ability to turn things around Tue 17 May 2022 04.10 BST Share on Facebook
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It’s 1996 and I’m in my last year of undergraduate studies at James Cook University, in Townsville. World coral expert Prof Terry Hughes cautions our class that on current trajectories, climate change and coral bleaching threaten destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. In another class, rainforest expert Prof Stephen Williams shares his concerns that increasing temperatures will force highly climate-sensitive animals – including the golden bowerbird and lemuroid ringtail possum – to move higher and higher up mountains in the ancient rainforests of the Wet Tropics, to cling to survival in cooler refuges. Of course, once trapped on a mountain top, there’s nowhere further for many wildlife species to retreat to.
As an optimistic 21-year-old, their warnings are unsettling, but I’m not panicked. I’m still hopeful science will help provide answers to the challenges at hand, and naively, I trust that our political leaders will act swiftly. In doing so we’ll avoid any genuinely dire outcomes for the wildlife and ecosystems so many Australians, and indeed people globally, hold so dear. After all, we are entwined with and completely dependent upon nature, so allowing its demise would be genuinely reckless, right?
It’s now 2022, approximately a quarter of a century later, and we’re just days away from what I and many others regard as a make-or-break federal election. But why the urgency now, and how have we arrived at such a juncture? In short: successive federal and state governments, led by both major parties, have unequivocally failed us and the remarkable plants, animals and other species we share this continent with.
Not only have the warnings of Hughes and Williams, and countless other ecologists, environmental and climate scientists come to pass, the damage has regularly been more severe and rapid than so many feared. The Great Barrier Reef has suffered four bleaching events in the last seven years alone – this year’s event reveals more than 90% of the Great Barrier Reef’s area surveyed is bleached – and sizeable portions, once vibrant and diverse, now lie dead, crumbling and replaced by algae. Many fish and other species dependent on coral for their homes are now also gone.
The real tragedy here is that such events were as preventable as they were predictable, if political leaders had listened and acted, if they had exercised courage, compassion, care and common sense. We are told our minister for the environment has no legal duty of care to protect children from the climate crisis. But surely, given such positions of importance, at the very least our leaders have a moral duty to help ensure a world that’s biodiverse and a climate that is safe?
For so many of us, the historic and ongoing environmental destruction is excruciating; the pain is visceral. But despite the magnitude of the devastation, there remains a great opportunity and ability to turn things around.
Arresting Australia’s dire environmental trajectory will require change across society, and require us to confront our recent history and the continued toll it is taking. A colonial mindset and command-and-control relationship with the environment must end. To begin righting the wrongs we need:
Whether it’s seeing a peregrine falcon effortlessly rocket between city skyscrapers, or a thorny devil trudging across the hot sands of our arid interior, or being overwhelmed by the kaleidoscope of colour of a coral reef, nature inspires and sustains us. Come 21 May, we must change our course and care more deeply for Australia’s species and ecosystems.
• Euan Ritchie is Professor in wildlife ecology and conservation at the Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University
