The Federal Court’s ruling on the case VicForests v Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum Inc. (won on appeal by VicForests) that the existence of the regional forest agreement is enough to exclude the biodiversity protections of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act highlights how deficient Australia’s environmental laws are in conserving the nation’s biodiversity.

Sharks and rays are important parts of marine ecosystems in the Pacific, and are significant to livelihoods and communities. However, relatively little is known about shark and ray diversity, status and values in the Pacific. This paper presents a species checklist and overview of the sharks and rays of Palau.

The dominance of noisy miners in eastern Australia is a serious threatening process affecting Australia’s avifauna. A spatially explicit, grid-based model framework was derived to predict the spread of noisy miners and to identify areas in which the management of miner abundance will be more likely to succeed.

Of the 307 confirmed bird species recorded in the Rockhampton region of Australia between 1887 and 1975, 11 species have disappeared, most likely due mainly to clearing of eucalypt woodland and rainforest, and overgrazing. This is the highest number of extirpated species reported for an area of greater than 1000 km² in Australia to date.

Nestboxes may be a thermal trap in hot exposed conditions making them ineffective mitigation or conservation tools. Trials quantified that double-walled, pale painted boxes are substantially cooler than single walled nestboxes. Creating a double-walled air space avoids polluting synthetic insulation, is light-weight and can be retrofitted to existing boxes.