IRRECOVERABLE CARBON COUNTRY PROFILE
Australia
3.111
BILLION
metric tons of total irrecoverable carbon located in Australia, averaging 9.0 metric tons per hectare in lands that contain irrecoverable carbon
38.4
PERCENT
of irrecoverable carbon is within protected areas
51.1
PERCENT
of irrecoverable carbon is within Indigenous and community lands
1300
VERTEBRATE SPECIES
in high-carbon areas
12.7
PERCENT
of irrecoverable carbon lost between 2011-2024
Australia houses 2.3% of the world’s irrecoverable carbon, concentrated in coastal mangroves and seagrasses as well as forests in the two southern corners of the country and Tasmania. The eucalyptus forests in the southeast are the most carbon-dense in the world in terms of aboveground biomass. The megafires that whipped through Australia in 2019-2020 destroyed parts of this subtropical ecosystem, which are particularly vulnerable because of their dry conditions and oil-rich foliage.
- The country boundaries shown on this map are recognized by the country authority.
- The carbon breakdown numbers are summarized according to MarineRegions.org, which is in the public domain. This may result in islands, territories and boundaries that do not accord strictly with those protocols used by the UN and other international organizations. The boundaries and territory/country names used by CI or by CI's partner organizations and contributors in this research do not imply endorsement or acceptance by CI of those boundaries or country names.
- Protected area stats are from the World Database on Protected Areas, available at: www.protectedplanet.net. This spatial database is publicly available and displayed on https://irrecoverable.resilienceatlas.org/.
- Indigenous & community lands stats are from spatial data compiled by the ICCA Consortium in 2021. This spatial dataset is extensive but not comprehensive, and it is not publicly available due to sensitivities with displaying Indigenous & community lands. More information can be found at: https://report.territoriesoflife.org/. Protected areas and Indigenous & community lands are not mutually exclusive and may overlap.
- ‘Loss from 2011-2020’ is derived from Hansen et al.’s spatial data on annual tree cover loss, which underpins Global Forest Watch (https://www.globalforestwatch.org/). We found that 83% of irrecoverable lands are tree-covered, so this dataset captures the majority but not all irrecoverable carbon loss globally.
- Species numbers are derived from the habitat ranges of 10,744 species of birds, 5,219 mammals, 4,462 reptiles, and 6,254 amphibians. Thousands of scientists contribute to this data through IUCN (https://www.iucnredlist.org/) and BirdLife International. We included only those species whose habitat ranges had at least 100 sq km overlap with irrecoverable carbon lands.