The world’s most famous naturalist Sir David Attenborough says Australia will be the first continents to lose its rare wildlife and vegetation to increased global warming.
Sir David made the claims while in the South Australian town of Burra where he is shooting a new documentary.
He believes Australia’s rare flora and fauna will be the first to disappear if climate change continues to warm in patterns predicted by many scientists.
The naturalist was in the Mid North town to film the rare Pygmy Blue Tongue Lizard, once believed extinct and now found only in an 80 by 30 kilometre zone around the old mining township.
Obviously feeling the hot temperatures of the day, the 80-year-old seemed to spring to life when asked about Australia’s nature. His passionate energy and distinctive voice seems to tap a well of its own.
“Pygmy Blue Tongue was thought to be extinct for other 30 years before it was rediscovered,” he said.
The quickly gathering pace of human development was simply squeezing other species out of existence.
“In the natural world things have always changed,” Sir David told ABC News.
“But we are making changes so quickly that it would be very difficult for many species to accommodate.
“Whereas in the past species were able to migrate to follow the changing conditions, so much of the surface of the land now is taken up by us it's very difficult for species to move in that sort of way. And so if they can't move, they will disappear.”
Sir David was filming the Pygmy Blue Tongue Lizard for his new BBC series on reptile life, In Cold Blood, expected to screen in Europe in 2007 with Australian broadcast dates yet to be confirmed.
The Pygmy blue tongue was once found throughout the Adelaide plains regions but by the 1990s it was considered to be extinct, until a lizard was found in the belly of a snake near Burra.
Professor Mike Bull from Flinders University said that started a search for the animal and now they have found 22 populations around Burra. He said the creature was too precious for the world to lose again.
“It lives down spider burrows, which is really almost never found, there's no other lizard that we know of that does that,” he said.
“In mating the male actually wraps his tail around a clump of grass next to the hole to give himself a bit of leverage, dips down the hole and grabs the female by the neck and pulls her out and mates with her on the surface, and she scurries back down a hole again.
Local apple farmer Tony Thorogood said he is doing his best to protect the icon and hopes Sir David’s television project can get others to care for the lizard as much as he does.
“If you've got daughters and children, you don't like them to have accidents in cars, and if you've got pygmy blue tongues you'd like them to … they're like our son and daughters,’’ he laughed.
Sir David says if all people shared the attitude of the Burra farmer, it would go a long way to solving the climate change problem.
“Humanity, human beings worldwide are contributing to climate change,” he said.
”We ought now to have a worldwide change in moral attitudes that you don't waste energy, because energy is produced at a cost, and to waste it is sinful. I mean it … but mad as well.”
http://www.abc.net.au/northandwest/stories/s1800345.htm?backyard
Sir David made the claims while in the South Australian town of Burra where he is shooting a new documentary.
He believes Australia’s rare flora and fauna will be the first to disappear if climate change continues to warm in patterns predicted by many scientists.
The naturalist was in the Mid North town to film the rare Pygmy Blue Tongue Lizard, once believed extinct and now found only in an 80 by 30 kilometre zone around the old mining township.
Obviously feeling the hot temperatures of the day, the 80-year-old seemed to spring to life when asked about Australia’s nature. His passionate energy and distinctive voice seems to tap a well of its own.
“Pygmy Blue Tongue was thought to be extinct for other 30 years before it was rediscovered,” he said.
The quickly gathering pace of human development was simply squeezing other species out of existence.
“In the natural world things have always changed,” Sir David told ABC News.
“But we are making changes so quickly that it would be very difficult for many species to accommodate.
“Whereas in the past species were able to migrate to follow the changing conditions, so much of the surface of the land now is taken up by us it's very difficult for species to move in that sort of way. And so if they can't move, they will disappear.”
Sir David was filming the Pygmy Blue Tongue Lizard for his new BBC series on reptile life, In Cold Blood, expected to screen in Europe in 2007 with Australian broadcast dates yet to be confirmed.
The Pygmy blue tongue was once found throughout the Adelaide plains regions but by the 1990s it was considered to be extinct, until a lizard was found in the belly of a snake near Burra.
Professor Mike Bull from Flinders University said that started a search for the animal and now they have found 22 populations around Burra. He said the creature was too precious for the world to lose again.
“It lives down spider burrows, which is really almost never found, there's no other lizard that we know of that does that,” he said.
“In mating the male actually wraps his tail around a clump of grass next to the hole to give himself a bit of leverage, dips down the hole and grabs the female by the neck and pulls her out and mates with her on the surface, and she scurries back down a hole again.
Local apple farmer Tony Thorogood said he is doing his best to protect the icon and hopes Sir David’s television project can get others to care for the lizard as much as he does.
“If you've got daughters and children, you don't like them to have accidents in cars, and if you've got pygmy blue tongues you'd like them to … they're like our son and daughters,’’ he laughed.
Sir David says if all people shared the attitude of the Burra farmer, it would go a long way to solving the climate change problem.
“Humanity, human beings worldwide are contributing to climate change,” he said.
”We ought now to have a worldwide change in moral attitudes that you don't waste energy, because energy is produced at a cost, and to waste it is sinful. I mean it … but mad as well.”
http://www.abc.net.au/northandwest/stories/s1800345.htm?backyard
