Ecology and conservation

Abstract

With the latest United Nations Biodiversity Conference (colloquially known as ‘COP15’) still fresh in our minds, this special issue focusing on the ecology of Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand comes at an opportune time. What the COP15 made starkly obvious was that biodiversity underpins human societies across the planet – biodiversity being defined at the genetic, species, and ecosystems levels. There was recognition at the COP15 that the world needed to halt the alarming rate of biodiversity decline and embark on urgent restoration of natural ecosystems to stem the current rate of loss of species and ecosystems, which is recognised as the sixth mass extinction (Cowie, Bouchet, and Fontaine 2022). The rate of loss of all levels of biodiversity is very concerning, not only from our desire to have our grandchildren being able to see koalas and Sumatran tigers in the wild, for example, but also because of the likely catastrophic flow-on effects to human society, which at the same time needs to adapt to a changing climate. To that end, the COP15 identified a set of four global goals and 23 targets to protect biodiversity by 2030. Target 3, one of the more ambitious targets, is the call for the conservation and management of at least 30 percent of the planet’s terrestrial, aquatic, and marine areas through ‘ecologically-representative, well-connected, and equitably-governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation, recognising indigenous and traditional territories and practices’ (Convention on Biological Diversity 2022). Under some of the other targets, there is an identified need to restore biodiversity, to reduce loss of areas of high biodiversity value, to reduce pollution and run-off, to cut global food waste, phase out government subsidies that harm biodiversity, increase funding for biodiversity conservation and financial flows to developing nations, to improve the management of invasive species, and require transparent disclosure by companies on their impacts to biodiversity. Effective legislation, and its implementation, is critical for protecting biodiversity and ecosystems. In parallel with the international emphasis on the need to improve on biodiversity and ecosystem management and conservation, as put forward at the COP15, the Australian Government has committed to improving the implementation and policing of the national Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, while the Aotearoa-New Zealand Government is in the process of implementing a new Natural and Built Environment Bill (see Knight-Lenihan, this issue). The intent of these cornerstone pieces of legislation is to protect biodiversity and ecosystems, while balancing that protection with development. The biodiversity and ecosystems of Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand are unique, reflecting a diversity, and concomitant endemism, that has largely evolved in isolation from the rest of the world. Nonetheless, that uniqueness has also been greatly influenced by human endeavours for thousands of years. This relationship that humans have with biodiversity and ecosystems within Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand is still very relevant, although probably not well acknowledged. Although for the most part, we live in highly developed societies, with most of us living in built-up towns and cities, seemingly divorced from biodiversity and its influences, we all have a strong intrinsic and extrinsic relationship with biodiversity and ecosystems: for example, the tangible values that catching fish on the