Month: September 2016

 Every time I delve into the details of how any species evolved and lives I feel amazed and it becomes my new favourite…. until I realize I am eternally fascinated by the incredible diversity of all life and how everything is connected! It is an absolute privilege to work in the heart of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area. If scientists and the community could only work together to unravel what and why species live here we’ll be in a better position to avoid losing our World Heritage like we have most of the Wonders of the Ancient World.We have a wonderful Science Program for the next five months we hope you’ll join. But first some background.   How serious is the risk of our rainforests becoming endangered? Very! We only have relicts left of once vast expanses — the smaller the fragments, the greater the risk of extinctions. We are incredibly blessed that rainforests still even exist in Australia today given they covered most of the 769 million hectare Australian land mass. That was until about 30 million years ago. At least 99.6 per cent of those vast ancestral forests were lost as global climates deteriorated and humans started clearing them — things got even worse during the last Ice Ages when only rainforests in refugia survived. These rainforest refugia amount to only about one per cent...