Our Purpose
The Habitat Advocate is a not-for-profit enterprise advocating greater awareness across the general community about the plight of our native habitat and the threats it faces. We advocate greater protection and conservation of our natural flora and fauna. We challenge attitudes and behaviours that harm or threaten natural flora and fauna.
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What is Native Habitat?
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Basically, ‘habitat‘ is the natural home of wildlife. For forest fauna, it is the forest still in its valuable wild state, undisturbed by humans, pest-free, biodiversity rich, and within a complex resilient ecosystem.
The term ‘native habitat’ can be described as an ‘ecosystem’ – the biological and physical components of a natural environment. This website focuses on the ecology of flora and fauna and regards an ecosystem as the natural home or ‘habitat’ of flora and fauna. Native habitat is an holistic ‘natural home, natural life’ view of nature. We take fauna-centric and flora-centric views of the natural landscape, not an anthropocentric (human needs) view.
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What is Habitat Conservation?
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What is ‘The Habitat Advocate’?
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‘Habitat Advocacy‘ is essentially active support and championing of the cause of wildlife protection and the conservation and rehabilitation of natural habitats.
The Habitat Advocate aims to constructively contribute to the vital subject of habitat conservation on a transnational basis, including:
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- Promoting mainstream awareness of the destructive human threats to habitat and wildlife existence
- Promoting mainstream awareness of the many wildlife causes and associated issues and impacts
- Challenging human killing , harm and threats to wildlife and native habitat, including the attitudes, mindsets and cultures that drive these
- Influencing environmental policy and resource allocation decisions
- Research, compile and advocate reform initiatives to stop human activities that kill, harm or threaten wildlife and the integrity of native habitats
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The Habitat Advocate – Our Purpose
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1. To promote greater awareness across the general community about the plight of wildlife native habitat and of the many ongoing threats that wildlife face
2. To provide habitat news about wildlife and native habitat issues, threats and recovery actions
3. To author and invite articles on wildlife and habitat conservation issues
4. To advocate greater protection and conservation of native flora and fauna
5. To challenge and critique those human actions, practices, behaviours, attitudes and underlying cultures that kill, harm or threaten natural flora and fauna
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The Habitat Advocate – Intended Benefits
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1. A timeless source of news about wildlife habitat related issues
2. A forum for information sharing on in-depth analysis and debate on wildlife and habitat issues
3. A networking resource for conservationists, environmentalists and simply anyone interested in wildlife conservation
4. An advisory knowledge base of information and case studies to support individuals and groups campaigning to protect wildlife and native habitats.
5. A reference library on wildlife, habitat science and related research
6. A policy development think tank for:
- Reform initiatives to natural land management practices
- Fauna recovery initiatives
- Viable eco-initiatives for local communities to transition away from activities that harm wildlife and native habitats
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The intended direction of this website is to raise public awareness about the values of native habitat, about the degradation and loss of native habitat and about its scarcity value. Industrial-scale exploitation has reduced much of the world’s native habitat to remnant islands. We challenge land management policies and practises that are inconsistent with custodial respect for the health, integrity and existence rights of native habitat. We challenge the many human threats that continue to destroy remnant native habitat and which collectively are accelerating local extinctions.
Flora and fauna cannot speak, do not have relocation choices like humans, cannot protest their plight, cannot lobby politicians, and cannot stop the bulldozers. Once they’ve gone, they’ve gone forever. The Habitat Advocate is an advocacy for habitat conservation, for better applied ecology and for changing harmful destructive human cultures. It is a voice for native habitat. This is our creed and our motto.
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Initial Focus:
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The broad focus of the Habitat Advocate website is to advocate conservation of the habitat of terrestrial vertebrate fauna (land animals with a backbone], particularly native mammals. Why?
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“Almost one in four of the world’s mammals are at risk of disappearing for ever,according to the World Conservation Union (IUCN)’s newly-updated Red List of Threatened Species, the most comprehensive assessment of the threat of extinction.”
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Initially we are focusing on land mammals of Australia. Why?
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“More than 20 per cent of all of Australia’s mammals are now threatened with extinction, according to WWF-Australia. Now the Redlist ranks the country as 6th highest for the number of threatened mammals.
… “Dr Ray Nias, WWF-Australia Conservation Director said, “These figures are extremely alarming particularly given the massive increase of species listed as vulnerable. This is a clear indication that a wave of extinction is sweeping through the Australian fauna.
”A large number of animal species are moving into the threatened category for the first time, primarily as a result of landclearing, the impact of weeds and pests and the loss of wetland habitat.
“Australia is still in a position to reverse this trend but only if we take immediate and massive action on these issues.”
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