Australia & Oceania

New Zealand's Taranaki Mounga

New Zealand mountain granted same legal rights as a person

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Taranaki Mounga, the second-highest mountain on New Zealand’s North Island, and its surrounding peaks have been granted legal personhood, becoming the country’s third natural feature to gain the same rights, duties and protections as individuals. The mountain region is of considerable cultural significance to Taranaki Māori and its designation of legal personhood is a long-awaited acknowledgment of their relationship to it, including that it is considered an ancestor. The mountain will also now be solely referred to officially by its Māori name, laying to rest its former colonial name, Mount Egmont.

Woman with pink breast cancer ribbon

New therapy trial from Australian researchers nearly doubles breast cancer cure rates

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A phase 3 clinical trial from Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Center has shown that adding a targeted immunotherapy drug to chemotherapy dramatically improved the cure rate for patients with the most common kind of breast cancer. In the present phase 3 trial, 510 patients were randomized to receive chemotherapy with either intravenous nivolumab or placebo. In patients treated with nivolumab plus chemotherapy, rates were statistically significant, nearly double those who received placebo plus chemo: 24.5% versus 13.8%, respectively. The findings offer promise for a new treatment paradigm for the deadly disease.

Basking shark

South Australia bans fishing of many sharks and rays in its waters

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The state of South Australia has banned fishing of several endangered or critically endangered sharks and rays in its waters.
The state government said the new rules prohibit both recreational and commercial fishing of critically endangered species such as the whitefin swellshark, oceanic whitetip shark, gray nurse shark, and green sawfish; as well as endangered ones like the greeneye spurdog, southern dogfish, and basking shark. Additionally, fishing of all stingarees in the genus Urolophus and skates in the genera Dipturus and Dentiraja are banned.

Solar panels

Australia to invest $125m in Pacific island off-grid and community scale renewables

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The funding, which comprises a $75 million investment through the REnew Pacific program and $50 million through the Australia-Pacific Partnership for Energy Transition, was announced at the COP29 United Nations climate summit. The REnew Pacific program will help deliver off-grid and community-scale renewable energy in remote and rural parts of the Pacific, enabling lighting, access to water, improved agriculture, better food security, quality education and health services, reliable communications connectivity and enhanced incomes. The $50 million Partnership for Energy Transition funding will capture renewable energy investment benefits such as energy transition modelling, grid studies, feasibility studies and university collaborations.

Australian money

Australia to slash $10 billion off student debt amid cost of living pressures

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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said that his government plans to cut student loans for around three million Australians by 20%, wiping off around $10 billion USD in debts. The move builds on May’s budget, which attacked cost of living pressures in Australia and gave debt relief for students, as well as more investment to make medicines cheaper, and a boost to a rent assistance program. The changes would mean the average graduate with a loan of A$27,600 would have A$5,520 wiped, the government said, adding that they would take effect from June 1, 2025.

Good news for marine protection

Australia to protect 52% of its oceans, more than any other country

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The country’s environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has declared Australia will soon protect more ocean than any other country after the government finalizes a more than 300,000 square kilometer expansion of a sub-Antarctic marine park. Speaking ahead of what was billed as a global nature-positive summit in Sydney, Plibersek confirmed the Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve about 4,000 km south-west of Perth would quadruple in size.

Guam Kingfisher

‘Extinct’ Guam kingfisher takes flight again after nearly 40 years

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Six Guam kingfishers, known locally as sihek, have been released into the wild, marking their return from nearly four decades of being extinct in the wild. Sihek became extinct in the wild from their native Guam in 1986 due to the introduction of the brown tree snake, but a captive-breeding program has kept the species alive since then. This release, on the predator-free Palmyra Atoll, about 3,700 miles east of Guam, is part of a larger plan to establish a breeding population there, with the ultimate goal of returning the sihek to Guam once the threat from brown tree snakes is addressed.

Tuna

Maldives drops plan to reopen longline tuna fishing following protests

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Longline fishing for tuna will remain closed in the Maldives, the island country’s president announced on Aug. 29. The decision came after local fishers, conservation NGOs and scientists protested against plans by the administration of President Mohamed Muizzu to reopen longline fisheries for yellowfin tuna and bigeye tuna. Longline fishing has been banned in the Maldives since 2019.

Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails and calls after hours

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The new rule means employees, in most cases, cannot be punished for refusing to read or respond to contacts from their employers outside work hours. Australians worked on average 281 hours of unpaid overtime in 2023, according to a survey last year by the Australia Institute, which estimated the monetary value of the labor at $88 billion USD. The changes add Australia to a group of roughly two dozen countries, mostly in Europe and Latin America, which have similar laws.

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