Posted for Mico Tatalovic

Australia’s government is being taken to task over its environmental record as a new paper reveals the extinction risk facing the south pacific region.

In the lead-up to the Pacific Island Forum in Cairns, Australia, next week a recently published review of more than 24,000 conservation papers regarding the region warns that “Oceania will require the implementation of effective policies for conservation if the region’s poor record on extinctions is not to continue.”

“Earth is experiencing its sixth great extinction event and the new report reveals that this threat is advancing on six major fronts,” says the paper’s lead author, ecologist Richard Kingsford of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia (press release).

The paper, published in Conservation Biology, focuses on habitat loss and species extinctions in Australia, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. It notes that the region contains six of the world’s 39 hotspots of diversity but that these six could become much colder as mass extinction of species is taking place at all of them.

“Our region has the notorious distinction of having possibly the worst extinction record on earth,” says Kingsford, “This is predicted to continue without serious changes to the way we conserve our environments and dependent organisms.”

Kingsford criticizes Australian government for “ignoring a wildlife extinction crisis on its doorstep, doing little to help Pacific nations deal with overwhelming conservation problems” reports The Canberra Times. Based on findings in the paper Kingsford has called for a regional treaty to guarantee environmental aid to developing island nations in Oceania, who have a poor capacity for informing their citizens about conservation and the state of the environment.

With a growing human population (the paper cites UN data predicting that by 2050 human populations will grow by 35% in Australia, 25% in New Zealand and 76% in Papua New Guinea) these burdens on the environment will likely persist and even increase. The WWF recently published figures showing that in Australia alone 300,000 hectares of wilderness were lost to land clearing in 2007, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

“Unless we get this equation right, future generations will surely be paying more in terms of quality of life and the environment we live in. And our region will continue its terrible reputation of leading the world in the extinction of plants and animals,” says Kingsford.

Image: endangered animal crossing signs / by GregTheBusker via Flickr under creative commons