Guardian Australia is highlighting the plight of our endangered native species during an election campaign that is ignoring broken environment laws and rapidly declining ecosystems
Explore the series – Last chance: the extinction crisis being ignored this election
Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email
A rare “bum-breathing” turtle found in a single river system in Queensland has suffered one of its worst breeding seasons on record due to flooding last December. It has prompted volunteers to question how many more “bad years” the species can survive.
A freshwater species that breathes by absorbing oxygen through gill-like structures in its tail, the Mary River turtle is endemic to south-east Queensland. Its population has fallen by more than 80% since the 1960s and its conservation status was upgraded from endangered to critically endangered last year.
Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/10/2025 - 10:00
04/10/2025 - 10:00
Agapanthus are daggy, environmental pests. Can we stop and think before these unsightly shrubs take over?
On my birthday I made time for my one true passion. Hating agapanthus.
I was walking my kids to school, taking time from their precious blink-and-you’ll-miss-it childhoods to seethe and take a picture of the revolting, saggy mess of agapanthus on the way. I have urgently supplied this picture to the Guardian and I’m ready and willing to speak out further.
Emily Mulligan is a writer from Sydney
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04/10/2025 - 10:00
Global research reveals most of 400m tonnes produced using fossil fuels, predominantly coal or oil
Less than 10% of the plastic produced around the world is made from recycled material, according to the first detailed global analysis of its life cycle.
The research reveals that most plastic is made from fossil fuels, predominantly coal and oil, despite rhetoric by producers, supermarkets and drinks companies about plastic being recycled.
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04/10/2025 - 10:00
In December 2024, when unseasonable flooding threatened the breeding season of a critically endangered turtle, Marilyn Connell and other members of a Queensland community conservation group sprang into action. The Mary river turtle is one of 2,000 Australian species listed as under threat in what scientists are calling an extinction crisis
‘Every year matters’: Queensland’s critically endangered ‘bum-breathing’ turtle battles the odds
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04/05/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 06 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00113-w
Effects of anthropogenic noise on marine mammal abundances informed by mixed methods
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | [email protected] +12077011069
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