The Australian Museum has recently announced that after 84 years of publication, the current issue of its outstanding environmental magazine Nature Australia is the last and even the editor of a rival nature magazine regrets the museum's financially based decision.
'Nature magazines have a special place,' said Saren Starbridge, editor of national nature journal Wildlife Australia Magazine. 'They are an important part of the range of nature communications - visual, engaging, current, and you don't have to be online to enjoy them.'
Ms Starbridge is happy to remind everyone who appreciates high quality, full colour, well written nature journals that Wildlife Australia Magazine is still very much alive and welcomes subscribers. But she says the closure of Nature Australia is bad for Australia's environment.
Wildlife Australia Magazine is the flagship publication of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland.
'Australia, with its marvellous wildlife and thousands of intricate ecosystems, should be supporting dozens of nature magazines, rather than watching a very reputable and well-produced journal sink with barely a ripple because it wasn't making enough money,' Ms Starbridge said.
The new summer 2005 edition of Wildlife Australia Magazine has just hit the mailboxes of its lucky subscribers across Australia and the rest of the globe. This fascinating magazine is still going strong more than 40 years after it was started by Judith Wright, poet, historian, activist and founder of the Wildlife Preservation Society with Kathleen McArthur, David Fleay and Brian Clouston.
And what delights await the readers of this long-lived popular magazine? Here's a taster of the latest issue - with an island sanctuary theme - packed full of fact, informed opinion and wonderful colour images from Australia's finest nature photographers:
- Do blondes have more fun? The bizarre glamour of the blonde possums of Tasmania are certainly eyecatching and unique
- Visit the 'singing island' sanctuary off the coast of New Zealand where volunteers plant the trees that are bringing back rare birds and their songs that had nearly disappeared.
- Surrounded by reefs and honeycombed with salt lakes and wetlands, the WA island jewel of Wadjemup lies between two oceans (you might know it as Rottnest)
- On remote Lord Howe Island, even the phasmids and cockroaches are rare and endemic
Plus book reviews, kids 'page Young & Wild, round up of Australian nature news and much more.
An annual subscription costs just $37 within Australia and makes a great gift - to yourself or a friend. And since all the profits go Wildlife Queensland, it's also a gift to Nature itself.
Full text of Ms Starbridge's comment on the closure of Nature Australia is available
For more information about the poultry shed grant scheme and other activities, contact Wildlife Queensland by email or call +61 7 3221 0194. |
