Diversity - Australias Environment and Natural Resources

Australia’s environment and natural resources are incredibly varied as are the flora and fauna that inhabit the country. While Australia’s environment is in danger in some respects, the natural resource industries are quite profitable. One directly negatively impacts the other if careful planning is not taken into consideration.

As such, the environment is being damaged in Australia. The most common forms of environmental damage come from the harvesting of natural resources such as logging, uranium mining, and the CO2 emissions. As of 2005, Australia produces more CO2 per year per capita than the United States. However, the damage done to the environment hasn’t diminished the diversity of Australia’s environment. While much of the country is arid or a desert, there are a number of other habitats like tropical rainforests and more temperate climates. This makes Australia a megadiverse country, meaning they have the climates to contain many of the Earth’s species. The plants of Australia are typically adapted to hot and dry climates, as well as nutrient poor and acid soil, another issue of the environment in Australia. The key factor in the quality of Australia’s environment is the gathering of natural resources.

The natural resources of Australia include metals like uranium, copper, iron, nickel, and even lead and zinc. There are also precious resources like silver, gold, and diamonds. Other resources include bauxite, tungsten, rare earth metals, and mineral sands. Among fuels are natural gas, petroleum, and most notably, coal. Australia accounts for twenty-nine percent of the world’s coal exports and is one of the largest contributors to the world’s coal supply. This also contributes to the increased Co2 emissions affecting the environment. Aluminum, alumina, lead, iron ore, and zinc are among Australia’s top five mineral industrial productions with aluminum at 35.96% and zinc at 16%. A factor that influences Australia’s investments into particular resources is the rapidly growing population both of Australia and of the world. This has led to increased investments into energy resources such as oil, natural gas, petroleum, and coal. Additionally, the only country that mines more Uranium than Australia is Canada. Australia has approximately twenty-three to twenty-seven percent of all of the uranium on the planet. However, both the areas of Tasmania and Queensland have banned nuclear power development in their territory. It could be speculated that the other states of Australia would use the energy or it would be used for export, becoming an economic benefit to Australia either way.

The environment and natural resources of Australia mimic the flora and fauna, diverse and wonderful. Australia is home to almost every type of climate on the globe and hosts just as many natural resources that contribute to the growing economy. However the impact of gathering these natural resources has damaged the environment in some ways.