Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Reading the Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 People
- 2 Government and Politics
- 3 Economy
- 4 Work and the Labour Force
- 5 Government Taxes and Spending
- 6 Health
- 7 Education
- 8 Inequality and Social Welfare
- 9 International Relations
- 10 Environment
- 11 Science and Technology
- 12 Telecommunications and Computing
- 13 Media
- 14 Family
- 15 Gender
- 16 Lifestyles and Consumption
- 17 Crime and Social Problems
- 18 Religion, Values and Attitudes
- Sources and References
- List of Tables
10 - Environment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Reading the Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 People
- 2 Government and Politics
- 3 Economy
- 4 Work and the Labour Force
- 5 Government Taxes and Spending
- 6 Health
- 7 Education
- 8 Inequality and Social Welfare
- 9 International Relations
- 10 Environment
- 11 Science and Technology
- 12 Telecommunications and Computing
- 13 Media
- 14 Family
- 15 Gender
- 16 Lifestyles and Consumption
- 17 Crime and Social Problems
- 18 Religion, Values and Attitudes
- Sources and References
- List of Tables
Summary
Biodiversity
Environmental issues do not always lend themselves to comparative, quantitative summary. Every country has unique natural endowments and problems bestowed by its geographical setting. Sometimes comparative measures are merely charting these different geographic-cum-economic inheritances rather than any meaningful difference in environmental performance. Similarly, many environmental problems are primarily local: the effluent produced by a neighbourhood factory; the problems of water flow and salinity in the Murray–Darling basin; or the destruction of a particular urban heritage in the name of development. National summary measures cannot capture this local impact.
Tables 10.1 to 10.3 give a crude measure of countries' biodiversity simply by measuring the types of animals found in each. Counting species as if they are all of the same value, like a unit of currency, obviously fails to capture key dimensions of biodiversity. But the tables do show great differences among the selected countries.
Australia is recognised as one of 17 megadiverse countries whose ecosystems have exceptional variety and uniqueness. Of the selected countries, only the United States is also recognised in this way. Tables 10.1 to 10.3 give testimony to this rich biodiversity. The United States and Australia are the top two countries in all three tables, having far more mammals, birds and reptiles than any of the other selected countries. (The very large numbers in these tables are because zoologists recognise and distinguish many different types where most lay observers would see far fewer.)
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- How Australia Compares , pp. 159 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004