Time to properly fund threatened species and nature protection

Hand drawn image of the Christmas Island shrew

The Albanese government is failing to do its job to stop deforestation and protect Australia’s unique and globally important plants and wildlife.

In recent decades, more and more species have been added to the list of threatened species, all while federal funding for nature protection and restoration has stagnated.

One toxic example is the government’s Saving Native Species program, whose funding is due to expire at the end of the 25-26 financial year. After this, funding to help threatened species like the koala and greater glider would disappear. Scandalous.

Backed by people like you, the Wilderness Society recently ...

The Albanese government is failing to do its job to stop deforestation and protect Australia’s unique and globally important plants and wildlife.

In recent decades, more and more species have been added to the list of threatened species, all while federal funding for nature protection and restoration has stagnated.

One toxic example is the government’s Saving Native Species program, whose funding is due to expire at the end of the 25-26 financial year. After this, funding to help threatened species like the koala and greater glider would disappear. Scandalous.

Backed by people like you, the Wilderness Society recently achieved a landmark outcome from its court case against the Federal Environment Minister. The Minister agreed he had failed to meet the legal timeline to make recovery plans for species like the greater glider and sandhill dunnart, and the federal court ordered the Minister to remedy this by the end of July 2026.

But those recovery plans have no chance of success if the government refuses to fund them and other threatened species recovery efforts.

Please send an email today to urge Treasurer Chalmers and Environment Minister Watt not only to reinstate ongoing threatened species funding, but also to make nature a priority, and to drastically increase funding for nature protection and restoration more broadly.

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Send your email today!

Email Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Australian Minister for Environment and Water Murray Watt to demand more funding for threatened species and environmental protection.

Just enter your postcode below and click send. A personalised message to will have a bigger impact simply edit the text in the box below.

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Dear Treasurer Chalmers and Minister Watt,
CC: Secretary, Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water Mike Kaiser

I am emailing you both, as Australia’s Treasurer and Minister of the Environment and Water, to call on you to act urgently to allocate significantly more federal funding for the protection and recovery of Australia’s threatened species and for environmental protection and restoration more generally.

Australia’s unique biodiversity is globally significant and irreplaceable. Yet our conservation record is among the world’s worst.

Australia is the worst in the world for mammal extinctions. The IUCN’s announcement in October 2025 of the extinction of the Christmas Island shrew is the latest shameful example of the neglect of government after government of Australia’s pride and joy: its native wildlife and plants.

The Wilderness Society’s recent federal court case against the Environment Minister regarding threatened species recovery plans showed that a change in the government’s attitude towards nature and its priorities is urgently needed.

Steps need to be taken right now to help nature recover from decades of mismanagement.  A first step would be to extend and drastically increase funding for the government’s Saving Native Species program. More generally, a dramatic shift in the government’s approach to nature funding is urgently needed.

We need action and funding immediately to reverse Australia’s steep environmental decline. Federal funding for the environment has stayed stagnant for two decades despite massive economic growth and increases in government spending on many other portfolio areas.

Now is the time to allocate sufficient public funding for actions like environmental enforcement and compliance, and to address the backlog on species recovery plans, world and national heritage site identification and planning, and threat abatement planning.

Please properly fund nature protection and restoration before it is too late.

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