Last year, the Federal Minister for the Environment Tanya Plibersek said that “Australia has moved from the margins of international environmental leadership – right to the front.”

The Australian Conservation Foundation’s (ACF) Extinction Wrapped analysis paints a starkly different picture.

 In 2024, there were 42 more species and habitats nationally listed as being threatened by extinction and14 species moved closer towards extinction.

The ACF claim that in 2024, a total of 25,769 hectares of habitat - 92 times the size of Sydney’s CBD - was approved for destruction by the Albanese Government - more than twice as much as in 2023.

Species affected include the koala, four species of bat, three species of birds, the Northern quoll, and the Pilbara olive python.

Endemic to the western plains region on this list are the Painted Honeyeater and Corben's Long-eared bat which can be found in the Pilliga nature reserve.

Almost half of the koala habitat approved to be destroyed was for a single inland rail project in New South Wales.

In NSW, koalas are recognised as being on a pathway to extinction by 2050 with habitat destruction the greatest threat to the species.

Western Plains App previously reported on the alarming decline of the koala population, stating that, in the Pilliga there has been a population drop of koalas, estimated to be at 80 per cent over three decades.

Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson said the ACF report “absolutely slams” the promise from the NSW and Federal Labor Governments that there would be no new extinctions on their watch.

“The truth is, the Albanese Government more than doubled the area of threatened species habitat approved to be cleared between 2023 and 2024 - as well as walking away from their proposed National environment regulator,” Ms Higginson said.

"The Great Koala National Park still being logged almost two years after Labor were elected to protect it, and changes to biodiversity offsets that were pushed through Parliament on the last sitting day of 2024, will still allow critically endangered species’ habitat to be cleared.

"It’s political failure.”

The Sharp-tailed Sandpiper is now listed as a new species threatened with extinction and can be found locally in the Macquarie Marshes.

The report also highlights that the total number of new species threatened with extinction has risen by 41 to a total of 2,138 (as well as 107 ecological communities being threatened with extinction).

Affected NSW species include Pugh’s Frog, Alpine Water Skink, Hunter Valley Delma, Granite Belt Leaf-Tailed Gecko, New England Leaf-Tailed Gecko, Common Greenshank, Black-Tailed Godwit, Latham’s Snipe, Grey Plover, Ruddy Turnstone, Sharp-

Tailed Sandpiper, and the Terek Sandpiper.

The Sharp-tailed Sandpiper has been recorded in the Macquarie Marshes near Warren.

According to BirdLife International, the Macquarie Marshes is an Important Bird Area (IBA) and has supported more than one per cent of the global population of the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper.

While specific records for the Common Greenshank, Black-tailed Godwit, Latham’s Snipe, and Terek Sandpiper in the Macquarie Marshes are not detailed, the marshes provide important habitat for a variety of waterbird species, including migratory shorebirds such as these.

Data from the Macquarie Marshes can be accessed through the International Birdlife Data Zone

“The decline in biodiversity in NSW and Australia is a crisis for all of us, we rely on a healthy environment to live,” Ms Higginson said.

To access the ACF’s “Extinction Wrapped, document, click on the link.