Environment

s Germany's wild boar population has skyrocketed in recent years, so too has the number of animals contaminated by radioactivity left over from the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. Government payments compensating hunters for lost income due to radioactive boar have quadrupled since 2007.

Saddam Hussein drained the unique wetlands of southern Iraq as a punishment to the region's Marsh Arabs who had backed an uprising. Two decades later, one courageous US Iraqi is leading efforts to restore the marshes. Not even exploding bombs can deter him from his dream.

An economic study says wind farm projects in the Hallett area of the mid-north of South Australia have helped arrest population decline.

Blue-tongue lizards were once the lords of Sydney's backyards, but high-density development is banishing them to the city's fringe. Wildlife groups are reporting that blue-tongues and other natives, such as the tawny frogmouth, are being pushed to the edge of the city by more intense development and higher human population density.

Australia's national parks are failing to save native wildlife, with mammal extinction rates of almost 50 per cent occurring in some NSW protected areas, a CSIRO scientist says.

The Northern Territory Government has announced an overhaul of legislation which governs the environmental assessment of developments.

A new study of biological invasions in Europe found they were linked not so much to changes in climate or land cover, but to two dominant factors -- more money and more people.

For years I concealed a terrible secret. A secret no one knew. Not my classmates, not my friends, not my siblings---not even my Mom and Dad. I tried to deny it. I tried to hide it. But I couldn't keep it locked up inside me any longer. I sensed a building volcanic force of common sense that if not vented, would soon blow me apart. I had to come out of the closet. I had to let someone know. And I knew who needed to know most of all. I had to tell my parents that I was different. Different in a way that society still does not accept.

Australia's wildlife is becoming extinct faster than had been expected, and there is criticism that the old way, "lock it up" conservation, is not working.

THE term climate change is misleading. The world's climate has always changed, but what is different this time around is the extent of the human plague and its blind pursuit of life's comforts. This disrupts the fragile balance that maintains our exquisite and magical planet, and creates climatic disorder and chaos.