Sydney, March 24 – Australia's environment experienced another year of above-average conditions in 2025, but climate change is "accelerating" damage to ecosystems and wildlife, a new report said on Tuesday.
The 2025 Australia's Environment Report, conducted annually, found that the number of species listed as threatened under federal law has grown to 2,175, a 54 per cent increase since 2000, with 39 new listings in 2025.
Sea surface temperatures around Australia reached their highest-ever recorded level in 2025, according to the report, led by The Australian National University (ANU) in collaboration with the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), Australia's ecosystem observatory.
The report also found that heat stress across 79 per cent of reef locations monitored by satellites around Australia exceeded their once-in-a-decade threshold, more than any previous year in the 40-year record, leading to a sixth mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef.
A warm water algal bloom spread along nearly a third of the coast of South Australia, killing marine life and affecting coastal communities for most of the year, according to Xinhua news agency, quoting the report.
"Marine ecosystems and wildlife continue to bear the cost of a warming climate," said ANU Professor Albert Van Dijk, the lead author of the report.
"These extreme marine heatwaves are the underwater equivalent of the Black Summer bushfires – large-scale, climate-driven mass mortality events that used to be rare but are now happening more often," Van Dijk said.
TERN's Threatened Species Index, which tracks population trends of listed species over time, shows that threatened species have declined by an average of 59 per cent since 2000, with reptiles and frogs down by 88 and 67 per cent, respectively.
