National Threatened Species Day

The majority voted against a motion that:

calls on the Government to increase funding for the listing and protection of threatened species, habitats and communities and the preparation and implementation of management plans.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) notes that Monday, 7 September 2009 is National Threatened Species Day;

(b) acknowledges the significance of the date which is the anniversary of the death of the last known thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) in captivity in 1936 at Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo;

(c) expresses:

(i) concern at the continuing decline of Australia’s biodiversity and the increasing levels of threat and endangerment faced by Australia’s endemic species, with 125 endemic species now listed as critically endangered, and

(ii) alarm at accelerating levels of species threat in northern Australia, as noted by a meeting of wildlife experts in Darwin in February 2009 that reported on a ‘new and potentially catastrophic wave of mammalian extinctions’;

(d) notes that Australia leads the world in mammalian extinctions, with 40 species lost over the past 200 years; and

(e) calls on the Government to increase funding for the listing and protection of threatened species, habitats and communities and the preparation and implementation of management plans.