Quick questions on Threats to biodiversity and causes of change: HSC Geography 2022 Focus Area

The HIPPO acronym, popularised by E.O. Wilson, summarises the major direct drivers of biodiversity loss:

Climate change is usually treated as a fifth direct driver alongside HIPPO. It acts both alone (temperature shifts pushing species beyond their tolerance, ocean warming bleaching coral) and as a multiplier on the other drivers (drier conditions intensifying fire-driven habitat loss; warmer waters helping invasive species spread). The IPCC and IPBES jointly identify climate change as projected to become the dominant driver of biodiversity loss in many ecosystems by mid-century if current warming trajectories continue.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is the global standard for assessing extinction risk. Each assessed species is placed in a category based on population size, trend, geographic range and threats:

Australia is the canonical case study because the drivers are concentrated and well-documented.

Land clearing for agriculture and urban expansion has stripped a large share of original native vegetation across the Murray-Darling Basin, the Cumberland Plain, parts of Queensland and the wheatbelt of Western Australia. Queensland has been a national focus for clearing rates, though state-level legislation has tightened in recent years.

Australia's record is severe because of long evolutionary isolation:

Agricultural runoff (nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment) into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon; plastic pollution in marine systems; mercury and other heavy metals from historical mining; pesticide effects on pollinators.

Marine heatwaves driving repeated coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef (2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and a further event in 2024 reported by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority); shifts in fire weather contributing to the 2019-20 Black Summer fires; warming-driven range shifts and habitat loss.

Identify the components of the HIPPO framework with an Australian example for each. [5 marks]

Explain the role of climate change as a cross-cutting driver of biodiversity loss, with one named example. [6 marks]

Analyse the drivers of decline for a named Australian threatened or extinct species, using the IUCN Red List framework. [8 marks]