‘Worst it’s ever been’: a threatened species alarm sounds during the election campaign – and is ignored

The Australian Capital Territory’s faunal emblem, the gang-gang cockatoo, is now on the endangered list. Photograph: William Robinson/Alamy

Gregory Andrews was Australia’s first threatened species commissioner, appointed in 2013 by the then incoming Coalition environment minister Greg Hunt. He recently returned to the country, after serving as high commissioner to Ghana, and was disheartened by what he found.

Andrews believes the state of the country’s natural wildlife and biodiversity is the “worst it’s ever been” and calls the ongoing destruction of forests and other habitat “crazy”.