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40% of Aus untouched by humans
27/08/2008 10:40 - (SA)
Canberra - More than 40% of
Australia, an area the size of India, remains untouched by
humans, making the country as critical to the world's
environment as the Amazon rainforests, a study said on
Wednesday.
Australia has some of the last great wilderness, with three
million square kilometreslargely
unchanged by industrial civilisation, a report for
international conservation watchdogs the Pew Environment Group
and Nature Conservancy said.
"It's rare on earth in this century," Australian wildlife
ecologist and report author Barry Traill told local radio.
"We
need to hold onto this country. It's just so precious," he
said.
Australia was one of five great remaining wilderness zones,
along with Antarctica, the Amazon, the Sahara Desert and
Canada's northern Boreal, the report said.
Most of the untouched areas were in the country's vast
interior and northern savanna, including largely Aboriginal
Arnhem Land, northern Cape York Peninsula, the vast southwest
Nullarbor plain and the central Gibson desert.
Biggest threat
Pristine areas faced their biggest threat from introduced
feral animal and plant species including pigs, rabbits, foxes,
buffaloes and noxious weeds, the report said.
"Around that core of wild lands, hundreds of millions more
acres are healthy enough that they can still support the
maintenance of resilient ecosystems," Pew said on its website.
In addition to its wilderness treasures, Australia had some
of the world's most protected marine areas, with the Great
Barrier Reef the largest living organism, it said.
Australia, the world's oldest continent, ranked first
globally for the total number of unique native mammal and
reptile species, and among the top five countries in total
numbers of endemic plants, birds and amphibians.
Traill said Australia's government should be recruiting up
to 5 000 extra Aboriginal rangers to act as guardians of
untouched areas, with only 10% of the country currently
protected as parklands and reserve.
"If you drive through and see these vast areas of bushland,
it looks in pretty good shape, but there are subtle changes
happening, and we need to get people back out there managing
it," he said.
- Reuters
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