An historic meeting ended late last week in South Korea with the formation of an Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Led by the scientific community this independent platform will mimic a similar panel studying climate change. Those involved in climate change have had considerable success in catalyzing world-wide understanding and governmental action on global warming and it is hoped the configuration of the new body on biodiversity and ecosystems will have similar effects in its own field.

IPBES will facilitate decisive actions across governments worldwide based on ever increasing scientific documentation of accelerating declines and degradation of the natural world.

Let’s hope that this leads to a much greater understanding and appreciation of the real need for preservation of biodiversity and the protection of our wildlife and wilderness areas.

In a paper published today in Proceedings B of the Royal Society, Australian scientists have determined that dingoes are beneficial to ecosystems in which they are the top predator. Nothing unusual there perhaps, except that dingoes were an introduced species coming with settlers some 5000 years ago from Indonesia and usually alien species are detrimental to their environment. In some areas of Australia where fencing has removed dingoes, kangaroos have increased and destroyed much of the arid grasslands thereby reducing numbers of smaller mammals and other wildlife dependent on that ecosystem. The red fox was also seen to increase in numbers. However, in those areas of the outback beyond the dingo fences the wild dog retained its role as the top predator and more importantly retained a more diverse cascade of wildlife in the pyramid beneath it and the grasslands remained more intact. Therefore a role for dingoes in the conservation of outback wildlife and increased farming productivity is suggested.