fire and water

Three out of four of Melbourne's reservoirs have had fires in their catchments in the past ten days with two suffering significant damage. That means less water will flow into the dams as new young trees suck up more water than established trees.

water in town

Melbourne typically uses 1 billion litres of water a day. 

The Upper Yarra Reservoir is the second most important source of water for Melbourne after the Thomson Dam, and 2% has been burnt. 

Hybrid cars v conventional

A hybrid car may be worse for the environment than a conventional car because of the difficulty of recycling the batteries … but and if consumers don't invest in hybrids now the cars will never improve

Paper can be recycled 7 times and plastic more.

carbon footprint - electricity v gas

Every kilowatt hour used generates 1.3 kg of carbon dioxide. Using gas the same amount of energy produces a third of the amount of carbon dioxide.

ancient Tasmanian forests

In 1998 only 13% of the ancient forests remained
Less than half that 13% is protected in national parks
30% of Tasmania's forested wilderness is threatened by logging.
And that includes most of the ancient forests.
92% of the timber extracted from State forests become woodchips; 3.5% becomes sawn timber.

Source: Greenpeace

endemic

An ecological buzzword which trips me up. It means: found no where else - naturally. It therefore has a high ecological value. The opposite is a cosmopolitan species and an indigenous species is native but may be found elsewhere.

And a link.