Australia: Country

Question:

Write an essay on Australia.

Answer:

Australia is one of the prominent developed countries that communally support about seventy percent of the world’s species of animal and plant.  The nation has successfully acquired the place among the seventeen “mega-diverse” countries who are prominently contributed towards the maintenance of the process to biodiversity as the result of current change in land use (Bradstock, Williams and Gill 2012). However, crisis in biodiversity in Australia is also manifest by the several numbers of native species that have fundamentally declined in range and profusion since 1788 (during the settlement of Europe). Australia’s biodiversity is remarkably changing due to unpredictable climate. 

Being the nation is the driest inhabited continent there are many issues are emerging due regarding biodiversity. A growing body of the research identifies that Australia’s terrestrial and marine species, and ecosystems are vulnerable to recent trends to change the climate, significantly in combination with the demands of growing population. Here in this research, the researcher aims at identifying emerging issues related to the biodiversity of Australia that has taken place of the years. The research will be focusing the identification of the importance of “The National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia’s Biodiversity principles” and different approaches. Detailed knowledge about The Australian National Biodiversity and Climate Change Action Plan will also be identified and analyzed to know the future aspects related to the biodiversity conservation in Australia. 

The researcher in the study will provide a detailed literature review to understand the importance of biodiversity considering the environmental factors and related to the emerging issues in Australia in the recent times. By the formulation of research questions, the researcher will construct the methodology where various tools and techniques will be used.

Literature Review:

Prominent efforts have been evident towards the conservation of biodiversity by the government of Australia. However, it had not experienced pastoralism and agriculture until the arrival and drastic change of European settlement over the past two hundred years (Williams et al. 2012). Many environmentalists recognized later that the precious natural species needs to be preserved and protected by a methodical record keeping system. The reality of human-forced rapid change of climate, presents an unprecedented challenge to the conservation process of the biodiversity in Australia. In this literature review, the researcher will identified Australia-wide conservation strategy related to biodiversity in Australia analyzing the past conversation process as well. 

Referring to the complete diversity of living natural components on earth is all about biodiversity. In the summit of United Nations Earth Council, biodiversity defined in the formal way. According to them, biodiversity is considered as “the variability among living organisms from all sources, including territorial marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part: this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems” (Borie and Hulme 2015). The “United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity” was adopted this definition and after that many of the developed countries in the world including Australia has been signed this convention. Being an official signatory, Australia is committed to follow three core objectives:

 Conservation of biodiversity

 Contribute in the formulation of strategies at the national level for the continual application of biodiversity 

 Fair and equitable sharing of benefits incurring from resources (for instance biotechnology transfer) in the society of Australia.

Biodiversity has been identified at three levels:

“Species diversity” determines several numbers of “species” and their relative profusion in a specified area and this is frequently used as an pointer of ecosystem quality and health. For instance, the vegetation of rainforest contains a high diversity of plant species providing favorable conditions for animals and birds to feed and nest (Kanowski, Catterall and Wardell-Johnson 2015). However, this has been contrasting factor in case of Eucalyptus open forests which supports comparatively less biodiversity. According to Fischer and Lindenmayer (2012), these forests are generally responsible for more disturbance, generally caused periodic fires. “Generic diverse” on the other hand, is all about combination and variety of genes within species of animals, plants, micro-organisms and so on. Pickering and Hill (2012) opine that diversity in terms of generic is significant for selection of natural resources, variation and endurance. Furthermore, “Ecosystem diversity” defines as the variation of habitats such as deserts, forests, rivers, wetlands, mountains and coral reefs and the interaction between species within a specified ecosystem. In the ecosystem, two types of elements are exists: living (biotic) and non-living (un-biotic). Ecosystem functions under the invariable nature of existence of biotic mechanism such as animals and plants and non-living components such as sir, sunlight, water, nutrient and minerals (Halse,  Ruprecht and Pinder 2013). Supporting a higher diversity of plant species by ecosystem, it also supports a larger diversity of species of animal. However conservation of biodiversity required because of the adaptation of a natural ecosystem leads to instability and inferior diversity. 

The vision of the Australia’s biodiversity is to make healthy and elastic to threats and to give value both in its own right and make essential contribution towards the world’s biodiversity conservation process. Unfortunately, more than 1700 communities of ecological background and species are considered to be threatened and at risk of annihilation. Environments are continuously being dilapidated and several ecosystems are progressively vulnerable to collapse. According to Bush et al. (2016) the nation’s biodiversity is declining because of the impacts of the multiple ranges of threats, such as:

 Loss of habitat, degradation and disintegration 

 Enveloping species

 Usage of unsustainable and less effective management of natural resources

 Conversion to the aquatic environment and flows of water

 Transforming fie regimes

 Change of climate 

There are various factors largely contributed to loss of biodiversity such as disturbance of vegetation and soil; undomesticated animals; water resource depletion; fire; disease of the plant and so on. Apart from this, the nation is being threatened in several regions and habitats:

The tropical land of Australia’s Northern sides:

Northern Australia’s environments are under threatened due to process of land clearing, unsuitable or altered regimes of fire and mining, overgrazing and  so on. 

Forests

Since the settlement of Europe, half of the forests of Australia of its rainforests have been cleared and ninety percent of aged growth forests have been logged (Spies et al. 2012). However, more of the forests are not being protected from logging.

Rangelands

Approximately 75 percent of landmass of the country is rangeland. Incorporating range of ecosystems including “native grasslands”, shrublands, and woodlands, grazing livestock on local pastures is considered as frequent practiced across the rangelands, whereas the nation deprived from the large scale cropping and cultivation is limited. 

According to Iftekhar, Tisdell and Gilfedder (2014) Climate change is the prime threat likely to act a significant stress on biodiversity in its own right and it exacerbates many exiting stressors such as fire and invasive species. 

Biodiversity conservation programs and initiatives

To protect biodiversity, the nation has introduced main legal instrument, named as “The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act” in 1999 and the “National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia’s Biological Diversity” has provided the framework since 1996. However, the later strategy was replaced by Australia’s Biodiversity Conversation Strategy 2010-2020. To protect the Australia’s rich biological diversity, this new initiatives acknowledges many drivers of loss of biodiversity, fixed up clear and accountable targets for biodiversity, principles and community’s commitment by all levels of the populace and the Australian government (Ban et al. 2014). National Reserve System Programs, for instance, introduced by the government for protect ecosystem for future generations. A scientific framework has been designed for conservation of rare or endangers species along with the high species diverse areas. On the other side, the “Maintaining Australia’s Biodiversity Hotspots Program” has initiated for protecting leasehold lands and facilitate conservation enhancements in these areas (Carwardine et al. 2012). Based on the new biodiversity conservation strategy, many long term changes have been proposed and make strategy based on six priorities:

 Developing resilience to ecosystem: This has been ensured that natural environments are able to retain their values of biodiversity, handle the ecological pressure including climate change

 Mainstreaming biodiversity

 Enhanced knowledge regarding this among Australians

 Delivery improvement regarding the conservation initiatives

 To involve indigenous peoples with “Australia’s natural environments to conversation of biodiversity

 Success measurement

Research Questions:

By the formulation of the research questions, the researcher will identify the phenomenon to be studied. By the help of these questions, the problem statement will be addressed and analyzed. Based on the research topic, the following questions are being structured:

 How to develop conservation strategy to stop the decline in biodiversity?

 What are the priorities needs to be taken by the Australian government to preserve animal species?

 How to incorporate biodiversity objectives in all natural resource management regions across the society?

 How to develop strategic planning framework for the conservation of biodiversity under the southwest Australia Eco-region initiative?

 What are the problems facing biodiversity conservation in 21st Century Australia?

Research Methodology and Techniques:

Research methodology is more than the simply the methods the researcher intend to use to collect data (Panneerselvam 2014). The purpose of the research methodology is to collect information for the purpose of decision making and resolve the research problem more systematically. Following a systematic approach, the researcher necessarily used different tools and techniques in the methodology section to evaluate different perspective of the biodiversity and various emerging issues related to it as well.  Based on the appropriate research design, the researcher will be able to identify the research outcomes. Generally three types of research methods are used for analyzing the research methods: Descriptive, Exploratory and Explanatory methods of research design.  Applying all three approaches, the purpose of the research topic is being indentified and understood. Explanatory research method is identified the hypothetical or theoretical idea. By attempting exploratory research project, the researcher will be able to develop a framework for leading the future studies (Pickard 2012). On the other hand, the explanatory research design, the researcher will find out something new ideas or develop certain new insights which will give user a new perspective related to the research topic. Lastly, descriptive research determined as an attempts to explore and explain by referring further information related to the research topic.

In this research study, the researcher will use the exploratory research design, aiming to explore specific aspects of the research area. This is quite justifiable because the researcher may even change the direction of the study during the process of the research to get the best outcome. By accepting the exploratory researcher design, a suitable diagrammatic representation will be developed for analyzing how more and more number of animal species is getting endangered over the recent times and identify how crucial is its effect on the environment. Furthermore, this diagrammatic representation will help to identify the emerging issues which are required to take restrictive measures towards the conservation of the nature. 

Gantt chart:

Research Process:

Research process is the methodical approach to conduct the entire research study (Robson and McCartan  2016). By the following conventional research steps, the researcher will find the ultimate outcomes of the research. Primarily, the researcher will select the area of the research. Here the in-depth knowledge about the research topic will be briefly discussed. In this research, the chosen topic is issues related to the area of biodiversity conservation process in Australia and emerging issues related to the research topic. In the second process, the researcher will identify research aims and objectives or hypotheses. By addressing these questions, the research will get the ultimate direction towards extended literature review and research methodology. Reviewing the literature relating to the research topic, the researcher can describe the various perspective of the identified issue. This is one of longest and vital stage of the research process where the researcher will explore several sources of secondary data and information such as book, journals, online articles related to the topic of biodiversity conservation previous approach, ongoing practices, and future initiatives. In the next stage, the users need to select the best suitable data collection method. However, the researcher will critically judge advantages and disadvantages associated with several alternative methods of collection of data. There are two types of data can be collected in the research study: Primary and Secondary. In this research study, the primary data collection process will be followed. Moreover, the research will explore the quantitative data for conducting the survey among the selected respondent. For obtaining the data, a sample will be collected from the natural species that are facing endangers due to distortion in the balance of biodiversity.  However, further data will be collected from the resister of Australia government or other sources by reviewing the feedback from the officers, members of National Resource Management Ministerial Council of Australia. After this, gathered qualitative data will be critically analyzed. At the completion, the researcher will address the research topic as well as related issues.

To get the sufficient research outcome, data needs to be collected either by “primary data collection method” or “secondary data collection method”. In this research study, the data will be gathered from primary sources. Here sample respondent will be chosen from several persons who are associated with this Australian’s biodiversity conversion practices. With conduction of survey questionnaires, the researcher will get their valuable source of information. Furthermore, the researcher will arrange “in-depth interviews” of people who are working in biodiversity conservation record maintenance processes. This primary data collection method will be chosen because it is required to gather knowledge about the on-going biodiversity conservation procedures, their essentialities, identified issues, current obstruction and so on and those persons are working in this area are the best suited to be considered as respondent in this research process.

Data Analysis:

Data will be analyzed by exploring qualitative and quantitative methods. In this research, both qualitative and quantitative data analysis methods will be applied under the primary data collection. Qualitative data is a method of enquiry employed in many academic disciplines (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015). Data and information will be accumulated from the government register, journals, books through exploiting quantitative method analysis. On the other hand, those data collected from survey process and personal interview will be analyzed through qualitative data analysis method in this research.

Expected Research Outcomes:

By aiming certain outcomes, the researcher has framed their research work. The researcher will be able to provide extended knowledge about the conservation process of the biodiversity followed by the government of Australia. By exploring different opinions of environmentalists, the researcher will identify the precious endangered species in Australia over the years which needs to be conserved and identify the deformation in the balance of biodiversity. To improve the record for biodiversity conservation, the expected research outcome will provide a framework about how the government and community of Australia should priorities promote growth and resource exploitation over conservation and land sustainability ecologically and  use of water.  Since the biodiversity crisis has been already evident by many environmentalists, the research outcomes will help to develop frameworks and design required programs to protect biodiversity that is inadequate, inappropriate and poorly funded in Australia.

The primary purpose of referencing in an essay is to acknowledge the sources of borrowed information from someone else’s work. But following Harvard referencing and oxford referencing can be tricky sometimes, and students are often found struggling with it. If you want reliable essay writing service, choose BoomGrades.com who has some of the finest editors in the UK in its team.

Get in touch with BoomGrades.com today to get the best assignment help and writing service at the best price.