“Our rich and delicate biodiversity is made up of more than 600,000 organisms, and many are not found anywhere else on earth. These irreplaceable environmental assets underpin our $90 billion agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries, and the international trade that comes from them. They also provide our food, enhance our health, and allow our economy to prosper. In fact, you could say that our way of life depends on our incredible land, sea and aquatic environments….”
So begins a new educational resource produced by the Environmental Biosecurity Office to showcase the importance of environmental biosecurity to Australia’s amazing natural landscapes, flora and fauna. The resource highlights the importance of protecting the environmental assets that we all love.
“My office plays a unique role protecting the environment from exotic and invasive pests and diseases,” says Australia’s Chief Environmental Biosecurity Officer Dr Bertie Hennecke. “While we work closely with our colleagues on biosecurity for our plant and animal industries, we also collaborate with non-agriculture stakeholders, including the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, and environmental not-for-profits.”
As the Environmental Biosecurity Office was refreshing its web content, it saw an opportunity to develop new content that would connect with these stakeholders.
Protecting what we love: How environmental biosecurity is everyone’s business is the result. The story explains the importance of biosecurity in protecting our ecosystems’ flora and fauna. It profiles pests that, if they were to establish here, would severely impact our iconic trees (myrtle rust) and our love of the great outdoors (Red imported fire ant). It also highlights how the biosecurity system works, the role of the Environmental Biosecurity Office and how everyone plays a role in protecting our environmental biosecurity system.
You can see the story here: https://www.agriculture.gov.au/about/news/environmental-biosecurity
