Yi Fei

A group of conference attendees (from the Maron Lab) with a fig tree in the background

We had a brilliant week at #ICCB2025. Congrats to @yfchung.bsky.social for making the shortlist for best student talk! And thanks to the superb organising committee and all the volunteers 🙏 Loved catching up with so many wonderful colleagues; safe travels home to all

Decades of searching and a chance discovery: why finding Leadbeater’s possum in NSW is such big news For decades, researchers have sought proof this critically endangered possum existed in New South Wales. Now it’s arrived by sheer chance

Take a look at what the discovery of Leadbeater's possums in NSW, 250 km away from known populations in Vic, means for the conservation of the Critically Endangered species, & why well-resourced biodiversity surveys and large national parks are so important. bit.ly/4dSkbus

We recommend 3 practical steps:
1️⃣Embed adaptation across all levels, from policy goals and legislation objectives to guidelines and plans.

2️⃣Map and protect climate refugia with detail guidelines

3️⃣Enhance climate resilience e.g. through planting climate-tolerant species and enhance connectivity.

Good news: More recent policy documents are more likely to consider climate change.

Common strategies they adopted:
🌳safeguarding climate refuges
🐨connecting habitat so wildlife can escape extreme heat, fires or droughts
💰targeting funding
🌊avoiding offset sites vulnerable to climate impacts.

The paper assessed the extent to which climate change is considered in biodiversity offset policies and voluntary conservation programs in Australia.

Only 44% of offset policies and 27% of voluntary programs considers climate change – and most lacked details on implementing these strategies.

A @aunz.theconversation.com piece summarising the research.

It highlights how conservation law reform and state level reviews are a great chance to get it right.

Climate change must be considered at every level, actions must be clear, well-funded, and practical.
bsky.app/profile/aunz...

Do private land conservation policies and programs adequately consider climate change? Accelerating climate change is threatening both biodiversity and the effectiveness of conservation policy. Policy mechanisms like voluntary conservati…

First publication from my PhD is out!
Do private land conservation policies and programs adequately consider climate change?🌿🌡️

Read: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Huge thanks to my advisors Jonathan Rhodes,
@martinemaron.bsky.social, and Michael Drielsma, and to amazing funding partners

A big thank you to PhD candidates Hannah Thomas, Yi Fei Chung and Rosa Mar Dominguez-Martinez for presenting at our seminar today.

If you're interested in attending our next seminar, get in touch here: bit.ly/CBCSseminars

Endangered koalas and the ecologist documenting their extinction – video Maria Matthes, a lifelong conservationist, says loss of habitat and climate change are threatening koalas in eastern New South Wales

Endangered koalas and the ecologist documenting their extinction – video

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Allowing forests to regrow and regenerate is a great way to restore habitat New research found regrowth in Queensland provided valuable habitat after 15 years, on average, with some species benefiting from trees as young as 3 years of age.

Allowing forests to regrow and regenerate is a great way to restore habitat - new research from Hannah Thomas estimates the habitat values of regrowth for threatened species in Qld theconversation.com/allowing-for...

Biodiversity offsets, their effectiveness and their role in a nature positive future - Nature Reviews Biodiversity Biodiversity offsets, applied as part of the mitigation hierarchy, aim to ensure that ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity occurs as a result of human development projects and activities. This Review explore...

New Review: Biodiversity offsets, their effectiveness and their role in a nature positive future 🌎🧪

From @martinemaron.bsky.social and colleagues.

Web: go.nature.com/41jFsar Free online for the year!

‘Increasingly worried’: more than a quarter of a million waterbirds disappear from eastern Australia One of the world’s longest continuous bird counts has dashed the ‘wistful optimism’ of scientists hoping for a La Niña-driven recovery

‘Increasingly worried’: more than a quarter of a million waterbirds disappear from eastern Australia

“Reversing anthropogenic climate change remains the urgent broad-scale solution” for protecting terrestrial biodiversity from megafires.

Gave the last talk of my PhD at #ESAus2024 on target-based compensation for achieving #biodiversity net gain on Tuesday. In short: only feasible in a few ecoregions with nickel mining in Indonesia, and expansion in the most mined area globally not compatible with 50% intact forest retention 🦤🌏🌐

@martinemaron.bsky.social on the decades long struggle to stop senseless Queensland agricultural land clearing at #ESAus2024 🦤🌏

Ripper of a talk by Brodie Crouch on maintaining brigalow cover in grazing landscapes at #ESAus2024 just now.. in Brodie’s words, “if we had 20% brigalow cover in every paddock we’d be laughing” 🦤 🌏 🐮 🌳

Plibersek had Nature Positive deal in writing before Albanese vetoed without her knowledge Exclusive: Environment minister agreed detail with Greens but the PM intervened after lobbying from WA premier and miners

#EXCLUSIVE: Tanya Plibersek had a Nature Positive legislation deal in writing before Anthony Albanese vetoed it without her knowledge.

NSW government passes bill to repair ‘broken’ biodiversity offset scheme Reforms include public registers to track how developers are meeting their commitments and avoiding damaging endangered ecosystems

The New South Wales parliament has passed the “biggest reforms to the biodiversity offsets scheme since its inception” after inquiries triggered by a 2021 Guardian Australia investigation.

Want genuine progress towards restoring nature? Follow these 4 steps Bringing the natural world back from the brink is more urgent than ever. Nature-positive policies offers a way to do so – if done properly.

Want genuine progress towards restoring nature? Follow these 4 steps theconversation.com/want-genuine... via
@aunz.theconversation.com

#4: Effective implementation through transparent enforcement and monitoring mechanisms.
Even the best policy principles will fail if there is no compliance and matters are subject to discretional bias.
Effective monitoring should explain why, where, and how loss and gain happened

#3: Securing Net Gains Beyond Development Impacts
Beyond compensation for development impacts, additional conservation actions are required. To do this, we need significantly more funding and resources for habitat restoration, weed and disease management etc.

#2: Fully Compensate Biodiversity Losses from Development.
Any biodiversity loss from development should be fully compensated. Impacts on species and ecosystems that are irreplaceable must not be permitted. We cannot afford to accumulate new losses beyond what we’ve already lost.

#1: Legislate absolute net gain rather than relative net gain
Improvement of biodiversity over time must be measured relative to a fixed baseline, rather than a declining baseline.
Speeding at 120km/h on 60km/h road, slowing to 110km/h is still speeding. It needs to drop below 60!

Reposting this: How to translate nature positive commitment into meaningful conservation policies? We outline 4 key steps!
@science.org: science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Co-led with Hannah Thomas, alongside Brooke Williams @martinemaron.bsky.social, Jonathan Rhodes, Jeremy Simmonds‬, Michelle Wards