A whimsical moonrise over mangroves — where nature meets the data superhighway in a swirl of colour and light 🌕✨Inspired by tropical nights in Far North Queensland.

https://joan-stratton.pixels.com/featured/moon-rises-on-the-super-highway-joan-stratton.html

#FediGiftShop
#Dragonfly #Abstract #wettropics #Cairns #DigitalArt #MixedMediaArt #artist #artwork #fediart #mastoart #Art #Artforsale #Ayearforart #Buyintoart #giftideas #Paintingsbyjoan #JoanStratton @paintingsbyjoan https://paintingsbyjoan.com/

This little beauty is soaking up the tropical warmth beneath the bold, radiating leaves of the Queensland Fan Palm — one of my favourite foliage forms to play with!

Available now on prints; https://joan-stratton.pixels.com/featured/summer-dragonfly-on-tropical-fan-palm-joan-stratton.html

#FediGiftShop
#Dragonfly #Abstract #wettropics #Cairns #DigitalArt #MixedMediaArt #artist #artwork #fediart #mastoart #Art #Artforsale #Ayearforart #Buyintoart #giftideas #Paintingsbyjoan #JoanStratton @paintingsbyjoan https://paintingsbyjoan.com/

𝗪𝗜𝗞𝗜𝗣𝗘𝗗𝗜𝗔 𝗣𝗜𝗖𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗬

✧ Boyd's forest dragon ✧

Boyd's forest dragon (Lophosaurus boydii) is a species of arboreal lizard in the family Agamidae. The species is native to rainforests and their margins in the Wet Tropics region of northern Queensland, Australia. It spends the majority of its time perched on the trunks of trees, usually at around head height. It is a sit-and...

#WetTropics #Agamidae #Australia #Queensland #Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyd%27s_forest_dragon

Idiotfruit and tree #kangaroos: here’s why the ancient rainforests of #Queensland’s #WetTropics are so distinctive https://theconversation.com/idiotfruit-and-tree-kangaroos-heres-why-the-ancient-rainforests-of-queenslands-wet-tropics-are-so-distinctive-228195

Estimating co-#extinction threats in terrestrial ecosystems https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.16836

"These mountainous #rainforests are a relic of the ancient continent of #Gondwana, dating back million of years when #Australia and parts of #Antarctica were covered in #rainforest. While much of the rest of Australia has dried out, the Wet #Tropics have stayed wet."

Burning fossil fuels " left the wet tropics “at a real risk of losing the very things it was made a world heritage area to protect”.

"Queensland’s wet tropics see 25% rise in threatened species in three years as climate change bites. The number of listed threatened species in Australia’s world heritage northern rainforests has increased by 25% since 2020, as ecologists say they are now clearly observing the long-predicted impacts of global heating."

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/22/queenslands-wet-tropics-rise-endangered-species

Wet Tropics of Queensland
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/486/

“We also found the (native) bees (Tetragonula hockingsi) had diminished tolerance of heat stress after non-lethal exposure to the insecticides. Even bees exposed to miniscule amounts of insecticide, certainly not enough to kill them, were more susceptible to the effects of heat.The combination of heat stress and insecticide exposure may put this stingless bee at increased risk of decline."
https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/northern-bees-at-risk-from-insecticide

#FossilFules #insecticides #heatwaves #droughts #bushfires #rainforest #WetTropics #biodiversity #ClimateExtremes #WorldHeritage

Wind turbines near protected north Queensland #Rainforests
“The Queensland wind industry is the wild west. There are no rules, these companies can do what they like with very little in the way of legislation to stop them.”

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/22/conservationists-rubbish-plan-to-build-a-windfarm-near-protected-north-queensland-rainforests
#Renewables #Biodiversity #WetTropics #WorldHeritage

“All but 4% of the 80,000 hectares of #rainforest on the #AthertonTablelands were razed for the yeoman’s idyll of smiling homesteads, rosy-cheeked children and plump wives, , which only dissipated with the #WorldHeritage listing of the #WetTropics in 1988. The wet tropics cover a minuscule 0.3% of Australia’s landscape but support more species diversity than any other place on the continent. “

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/05/our-fate-rests-on-efforts-like-this-the-family-restoring-precious-rainforest-to-its-former-glory
#Restoration #Conservation #Biodiversity

‘Our fate rests on efforts like this’:
the family restoring precious rainforest to its former glory -

“A rainforest’s #silences are a polyphony of subtle, ceaseless, scintillating noises. A humid wet chaos of activity.

The #scented wind is alive, complex, mouldy and sweet, earthy, varietal: an evolutionary vintage. Distillations of #ancient plants embody the living history of living plants.

Three hundred million years ago – and beyond – a bridge formed between reality and magic, potent with memories that go deep in time, like dreams hardwired into grey matter.”

Extract from ‘Cloud Land – The dramatic story of Australia’s extraordinary rainforest people and country’, by Penny van Oosterzee, published by Allen & Unwin
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/05/our-fate-rests-on-efforts-like-this-the-family-restoring-precious-rainforest-to-its-former-glory

#Rainforest #Trees #Regeneration #LivingHistory #WetTropics #TreePlanting #NativeSpecies #Plants #GrassManagement #Cyclone #Restoration #Australia