One senior Australian scientist has predicted that about 250 bird species, that is 50 per cent of Australian land-based birds, will become extinct next century if current rates of land clearing and habitat depletion if current trends continue. Current conservation efforts are adequate . Despite enormous community willingness to improve environmental performance, government efforts in the form of incentive schemes and regulations to discourage polluting and destructive practices, need to be rapidly accelerated. State of the Environment Report concludes that adequate measures are not yet in place to combat the threats to biodiversity. In any case, revegetation efforts are labour-intensive and have failed to keep up with the massive scale of native vegetation loss.
Land clearing is no longer a problem .
Habitat loss caused by land clearing remains the biggest single threat to biodiversity. Woodlands, forests and grassland communities all suffer, particularly for agricultural expansion. A recent Commonwealth Government farming survey, for 1998-99, has confirmed that large scale clearing is continuing at an alarming rate. Replanting can replace habitat and biodiversity values. Healthy, complex native vegetation communities are difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct once destroyed.