13 new species at risk of extinction after Aussie habitat 'wilfully destroyed'

Australia’s steady tidal wave of animals and plants that are threatened with extinction has continued to build. Thirteen new species were quietly added to the federal government’s list of threatened species in just one month.

The worrying results were revealed by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) on Tuesday after careful analysis of the list of species given special protection under the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. The number now stands at 2,224.

Labor was elected to government in 2022, promising to overhaul Australia’s “ineffective” environment protection laws. “The need for action has never been greater,” Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said in October that year.

Warning environment protection laws are failing Australia

While the government has announced some reforms, including $121 million in funding for an "independent" Environment Protection Agency, conservationists are concerned the staged rollout of changes is too slow.

“These latest listings show our nature laws are powerless to stop Australian plants and animals being wilfully destroyed,” the ACF’s nature campaigner Darcie Carruthers said. “Australia’s forests, lizards, bush, wetlands and frogs need nature laws with teeth.”

Among the animals now included on the EPBC list are three reptiles, three freshwater fish, a turtle and a frog. But there is worse to come, as there are other animals like the mountain mist frog, which is still listed as critically endangered, even though researchers generally agree it is extinct.

The Biodiversity Council has warned the number of species officially deemed to be threatened with extinction are just the "tip of the iceberg", adding there are thousands of species that could meet the criteria but have simply not been assessed.

“At the moment we are concerned that not enough resourcing is going to these processes, and as such we are seeing far fewer species being added to the list than are actually at risk," its director James Trezise said.

“It is really important that there is adequate resourcing by the Australian Government to do this work."

One of the lizards on the list is the Hunter Valley delma, which was only described in 2022 for the first time. “More than 90 per cent of the lizard’s known range in the NSW Hunter Valley has been damaged by open cut mining and agriculture. There are at least 20 coal mines within the species’ known habitat range,” Carruthers said.

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In a sign of how everyday human activities are impacting Australia’s natural world, a rainforest tree, the Coffs Harbour Fontainea, was listed as critically endangered, with roadworks and construction threatening its future.

Environment Minister responds to escalating threatened species list

Of the 13 species added to the EPBC, six were from a backlog caused by the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires.

In a written comment provided to Yahoo, Minister Plibersek said the government is "determined to better protect" vulnerable plants and animals. "No one wants to see another of our precious plants or animals go extinct," she said.

"Giving our native species better protection under the law by listing them on the threatened species list helps, but that’s not all we are doing," she added.

"Labor is investing more money in the environment than any government in Australian history, including cracking down on the feral animals and weeds killing our native species, as part of a $550 million investment.

"We’re also fixing the Liberal Party’s broken environmental laws, including establishing Australia’s first national Environment Protection Agency – a tough cop on the beat with strong powers and penalties."

What are the new species added to the EPBC list?

Animals:

• Dalhousie goby – critically endangered

• Dalhousie hardyhead – critically endangered

• Dalhousie catfish – critically endangered

• Pig-nosed turtle – vulnerable

• Pugh’s sphagnum frog – endangered

• Hunter Valley delma – endangered

• Alpine water skink – vulnerable

• Ringed thin-tail gecko – endangered

Plants:

• Spyridium cinereum – endangered shrub

• Brachyscome brownii – critically endangered

• Fontainea sp. Coffs Harbour – critically endangered

• Sannantha whitei – critically endangered

• Caladenia amnicola – endangered

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