Reducing fuel within 40 metres of houses is the most effective way to reduce the impacts of severe bushfires, according to a team of scientists from Australia and the USA who analysed house losses after Victoria's Black Saturday fires.

First-year engineering students from the University of Western Australia (UWA) have won an Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Challenge prize for designing a worm farm to help farmers in Tamil Nadu, India.

Scientists have discovered strong correlations between effective management of the world's high-biodiversity regions and the welfare of the world's poorest.

The City of Melbournehas commissioned the University of Melbourne to help building owners assess the benefits of white roofs – which absorb less heat and keep buildings cooler during hot days – in the metropolitan area.

Ecuador has announced it will go ahead with its so-called ‘Yasuni ITT Initiative' to leave untapped more than 900 million barrels of crude oil – 20 per cent of its known oil reserves – beneath a pristine Amazonian nature reserve, in exchange for annual international donations.

The Australian Government wants more employers and employees to reap the environmental, economic and social benefits of telework according to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy.

Survey findings announced by renewable energy company Pacific Hydro accord with separate CSIRO research showing strong community support for wind farm developments – in contrast to media coverage of the issue over the past few years.

An international team of scientists has found one of the rarest and least-known primates in Borneo, Miller's grizzled langur, a species believed to be extinct or on the verge of extinction.

Rising CO₂ levels may be affecting the brains and central nervous systems of sea fishes with serious consequences for their survival, an international scientific team has found.

One of the Great Barrier Reef's most spectacular and diverse marine habitats, the fringing reef surrounding Orpheus Island, is at risk from rising sea temperatures.

Overfishing of bigeye tuna continues in the western and central Pacific tuna fishery, the world's biggest tuna fishery, according to the 2010 tuna fishery assessment report released in January 2012 by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (Oceanic Fisheries Programme) (SPC).

Australian researchers have discovered a new cellular communication process used by plants to respond to drought.

Queensland's iconic ‘Channel Country' – the Lake Eyre Basin, one of the world's last great natural wetlands – will be protected from large dams and unsustainable industrial development under proposed Wild River declarations.

Four leading global organisations have signed an agreement to create a Green Growth Knowledge Platform, a global initiative that will identify and address major knowledge gaps in green growth theory and practice.

As groundwater use soars globally, experts warn of increasing environmental and social costs.

Livestock farmers in the Murray-Darling Basin have pledged to allow the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to flood more than a million acres (400 000 hectares) of their land.

The Australian Government is calling for responses to an issues paper on its planned national energy savings initiative (ESI).

Planning for the world's largest marine park is set to benefit from technical and scientific assistance from a range of partners, including GIS company Esri and Conservation International.