Is Australia one of the countries that are saving natural resources?

Question

Is Australia saving natural resources? If not, are there other countries that are trying to save natural resources?

Answer 1

Like many countries, Australia is both good and bad on environmental issues, depending on the issue and on who is in control of the government.  It has long been a leader in international efforts to stop whaling, including so-called 'scientific' whaling by Japan.  Australia has also been  active in global efforts to reduce overfishing of species like patagonian toothfish (a.k.a. Chilean sea bass) and to protect threatened sharks, like the great white and the whale shark.

At the same time, however, Australia has been far from a leader in the global fight against climate change, and, like the US, resisted accepting binding commitments to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.  

And even on issues where Australia is generally a leader, there are sometimes exceptions.  For instance, at a recent global meeting on trade in wildlife, Australia lobbied against measures that would protect critically endangered sawfish from international trade in order to protect Australia's right to export 10 sawfish a year to aquariums.  And to give another example, Australia has grappled with invasive species problems for decades, and played a useful role in developing international guidelines on invasive species within the Convention on Biological Diversity only to derail the guidelines at the last minute after concluding they might impede Australia's trade interests.

So, I'd say the answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Answer 2

Have you ever seen The Crocidile Hunter??? Of course Austrailia is! Well, to bad that Steve Irwin died.. ='( That really made me sad to here about his death... ='( Well, a lot (practicly all) countries are trying to save natural resources! I know Congo is a good place, but there treasured gorillas are almost at the end of the path to extinction...