The Bleak Future of Australian Wildlife

As temperatures rise, Australia becomes more monochrome. In the ocean, the reefs have been whitening. On land, the forests have been blackening. Successive heat waves have forced corals to expel their colorful, nutrient-providing algae; half of the Great Barrier Reef has died. A near-unprecedented drought and exceptional temperatures—December saw Australia’s two hottest days on record—triggered the unusually intense bushfires that have incinerated almost 18 million acres of land. These disasters are vivid testaments to the consequences of climate change and the homogenizing effect of heat. A colorful realm of flora and fauna, one of the world’s most unusual, is slowly turning into a world of bleached reefs, charred bark, and sooty air.

In many cases, the catastrophes have undone years of work spent protecting species that were already imperiled. The , for example, is a mouse-size carnivore that lives only on the western edge of, but the dunnart’s future looks bleaker than ever. “We were a little more optimistic about this species a year or so ago,” says from Charles Darwin University, who has been working to save the dunnart for almost three years. “To go back to square one has been really awful.”