(Transcript from World News Radio)
A major bush conservation plan has been launched to help save native animals and plants under threat of extinction.
20 per cent of mammals and many more plant species are under threat.
And scientists fear much of the country's unique flora and fauna may not be around for future generations.
Julia Calixto reports.
Australia's great outdoors is world renowned for its unique array of wildlife and rugged landscape.
The country's flora and fauna draws millions of tourists from around the world.
But scientists say Australia's native species are under threat of extinction.
Professor Hugh Possingham, from the University of Queensland, says Australia is facing a decline in its rich biodiversity.
"At the moment about 15 per cent of all Australia's species are listed threatened that means they'll probably go in the next hundred years unless we do something about it. To lose half the species in the planet in the next 3 or 400 years is not unrealistic."
The Australian stripped legless lizard is one of them.
Currently, more than 95 per cent of its habitat has been wiped out across the country.
Scientists from the non-for-profit conservation group, Bush Heritage Australia, plan to reintroduce the lizard to Scottsdale Reserve in the southern highlands of New South Wales.
Dr Jim Radford, an expert in threatened Australian species says they've been working since 2006 to return the former farmland to its original state.
"Allowing regeneration and recruitment of alot of the native plants, herbs and grasses, and those sorts of species and ultimately that will support alot more of the native animals. We're going to introduce the stripped legless lizard - a small snake-like but it is in fact a lizard - reptile, into the valley here later this year."
Over the next ten years, Bush Heritage Australia will coordinate its conservation efforts with 50 scientists from 15 universities across the country with the aim of better managing Australia's biodiversity.
Scientists say climate change, invasive species, animal control and bushfire management are just some key challenges facing the native environment.
Australia has a massive 7 per cent of all the species in the planet.
Scottsdale is one of 36 reserves that scientists will focus their efforts on - millions of hectares filled will thousands native species.
CEO of Bush Heritage Australia, Gerard O'Neill, says they're also tapping into generations of Indigenous knowledge.
"That collaboration with traditional owners there and in the Kimberley and Western Arnham Land, the Central Desert to WA right through into this landscape south of Canberra is a very important part of our science strategy. We learnt so much about traditional ways of seeing and understanding country, but equally we brought new knowledge and experience and expertise to take advantage and work in that space."
From the grassroots up, Bush Heritage is calling on all Australians to help.
They hope to raise 20 millon dollars for the 10 year project.
But Professor Hugh Possingham says a bit more could halt the country's rapid extinction rate.
"If we really wanted to stop the massive extinction rates we have now, we'd need probably at least 200 million dollars a year thrown into threatened species. Mind you, 200 million dollars a year, again, is a tiny amount of money. That's a football stadium."
But this is no game.
Scientists calling for change before Australia's native species are gone for good.
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