Many of you will remember taking action to secure funding for Yellow Crazy Ant eradication back in 2016.
Infestations of these ants had formed in and around the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. Highly invasive in nature, these ants signalled devastating impacts on biodiversity, business and backyards, threatening the environmental, economic and social values of life in the Wet Tropics.
At the time, CAFNEC and you as our supporters, along with a coalition of organisations successfully campaigned to have the start of the eradication program funded.
Subsequently, a fist class eradication program has been run by the Wet Tropics Management Authority over the past two years delivering staggeringly positive results (see the image below)
BUT, and this is a big BUT..
The State and Federal Governments have not committed to funding the eradication program beyond June of this year.
Without continued treatment, all will be lost. Our chance of eradicating these ants will become impossible as they spread further into the World Heritage Area.
An independent review by Melbourne University found that without the eradication program the socio-economic costs alone would exceed $700 million over the next seven years.
Can you spare the time today to send an urgent email to Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister of Australia, and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, asking them not to abandon the Yellow Crazy Ant Eradication Program?
The program has been highly successful so far. Let’s finish the job and protect Queensland’s incredible Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.
Click here to send an email today.
Above: Success of the eradication program so far, on the left is 2017 surveys and on the right 2018 surveys. Red indicates presences of ants and green represents absence
Further reading:
1. Open letter 13/2/19 ‘Yellow crazy ants: still threatening the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area’
2. Joint Media Release 13/2/19 ‘Queensland faces economic and ecological disaster without yellow crazy ant funding’
3. Wet Tropics Management Authority ‘Impacts of Yellow Crazy Ants’
4. The Guardian article ‘Yellow crazy ant invasion threatens Queensland world heritage rainforest as funding dries up’
