Australia is one of earth's six biodiversity hot spots, with many species found nowhere else on earth. But since Europeans arrived we also have the world's worst record of species extinction, with 27 species of mammal lost and 92 per cent of the continent's old-growth forest destroyed or modified.
   The Federal Government lists almost 3000 ecosystems and more than 1500 mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and plants as threatened. Until recently, more than half a million hectares of bushland were bulldozed, chained or poisoned every year to clear land for agriculture - although legislation in 2006 in Queensland should reduce this - with land clearing accounting for 15 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. 
   The global conservation picture is as worrying, with species becoming extinct at 1000 times the normal rate. Half of mature tropical forests have been felled, much of that in the last 150 years - between 750 to 800 million hectares of the planet's original 1.5 to 1.6 billion hectares. 
   Because trees absorb carbon dioxide, this land clearing adds to global warming, as well as to a decline in the planet's biodiversity.

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