Latest news with #AndrewForrest
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Science
- The Guardian
This Jurassic-era relic has survived 150 million years on Earth – now it's one big fire from extinction
For the last five weeks, Jane Ogilvie has searched a patch of dense shrub shaded by sugar gums on Kangaroo Island in South Australia for a surviving relic from 150m years ago. The only known home of the critically endangered Kangaroo Island assassin spider is in the north-west of the island, where the Jurassic-era spider hides out in moist clumps of leaf litter. In more than a month of searches, and with just a couple more weeks to go, Ogilvie and a few helpers have only found one tiny juvenile. 'We get so excited when we find a good area but then it's deflating. Everything is so dry – it's hardly rained for two years,' says Ogilvie, a conservation biologist working with the charity Invertebrates Australia. Last year, scientists found just one mature female and six juveniles at six locations, all in a 20 sq km area that includes a block of land owned by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest. Those same locations have come up blank this year. The spiders need the moist microclimate of the leaf litter to survive, but there's a trifecta of threats drying out their habitat and pushing them ever closer to extinction. The spider's last remaining bolthole has been through near-record drought over the last 18 months, with rainfall among the lowest on record since 1900. The black summer bushfires burned through large areas of potential habitat that have not yet recovered, and an invasive plant root disease known as phytophthora is damaging the forest canopy and the plants that hold some of the leaf litter where the spiders live, drying out the habitat even further. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'If we look at the risks and [are] realistic, they're potentially one big fire away from extinction,' says Dr Michael Rix, the principal scientist and curator of arachnology at the Queensland Museum, who collected the first specimens of the spider and, with scientific colleague Mark Harvey, formally described them. 'By all objective measures, its existence is phenomenally precarious.' The Kangaroo Island assassin spider is one of 11 invertebrates on the federal government's priority list of threatened species. The assassin family of spiders – which get their name from their habit of slowly stalking and then eating other spiders – are found only in Australia, Madagascar and parts of southern Africa. Kangaroo Island's assassin was found in 2010 by Rix, who, along with Harvey, has described 37 of Australia's 41 assassin spiders. 'We collect this suspended leaf litter and shake it. The spiders close their legs and they drop down. I looked in the tray to see what's there – I knew it was undescribed. It was one of the really memorable moments of my field biology career. Very exciting,' he remembers. Rix says they have the most unusual appearance of any spider, with 'incredible elevated heads and long spear-like mouth parts'. 'They're unmistakeable,' he says. 'They're an early branch in the spider's tree of life. Assassin spiders are ancient and those around today are survivors of 150m years of life on Earth. 'They were only known as fossils before any living ones were found in Madagascar in the 19th century.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Kangaroo Island's species was feared extinct after bushfires swept across the west of the island in the black summer bushfires of 2019 and 2020 until Dr Jess Marsh, a research fellow at the University of Adelaide and an invertebrate conservation biologist based on the island, found two specimens in 2021 in a small patch of unburned vegetation. 'It's being squeezed into smaller and smaller areas,' says Marsh. 'Each survey we do is increasing our confidence that its restricted to this patch of vegetation, and nowhere else.' Marsh and colleagues are now discussing the idea of establishing a breeding program for the spiders in a zoo, creating an 'insurance population' – but removing individuals from the wild carries clear risks that Marsh says wouldn't be taken lightly. 'They've survived mass extinction events and past climate changes – a huge amount. Now in this short period of time, it's humans that are really testing them.' Rix says the precarious situation the spiders find themselves in is part of a much bigger wave of largely unseen extinctions of invertebrates. Officially, Australia lists only one invertebrate as extinct – the Lake Pedder earthworm. But last year, Rix, Marsh and colleagues released research that estimated that since the European invasion of Australia, about 9,000 invertebrates had likely suffered a so-called ghost extinction – 'the loss of undiscovered species that have left no trace.' 'Some people might say, 'who cares about a tiny spider going extinct'?' says Rix. 'But this is part of the quantum of invertebrate extinctions that we're experiencing right now. This might be a problem that creeps up on us. 'There's a concept of conserving evolutionary significant units – retaining diversity that speaks deeply to Earth's evolutionary history. That is what these spiders are – a window into the past. They're survivors. Trying to conserve them is so important.' Marsh and Rix were the only two people to have ever found a Kangaroo Island assassin spider, until this week's discovery – not by a scientist, but an enthusiastic 17-year-old volunteer called Jack Wilson who was filling his time during school holidays. 'It was probably my 10th sieve of the day,' he says. 'They can look like little blobs of dirt, but it's the big neck that gives them away. I'm pretty chuffed. It's crazy.'
AU Financial Review
4 days ago
- Business
- AU Financial Review
Fortescue near settlement with US tycoon after energy deal bust-up
Fortescue is close to settling a two-year-old legal dispute with the family office of American billionaire Paul Tudor Jones in a move that will spare the company's executive chairman Andrew Forrest from giving seven hours of evidence in a US court. Forrest, Australia's second-richest person, was scheduled to face up to seven hours of questioning under oath earlier this month as part of a lawsuit filed in the Connecticut District Court by Kid Shelleen, the private company of hedge fund manager Tudor Jones.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Science
- The Guardian
This Jurassic-era relic has survived 150 million years on Earth – now it's one big fire from extinction
For the last five weeks, Jane Ogilvie has searched a patch of dense shrub shaded by sugar gums on Kangaroo Island in South Australia for a surviving relic from 150m years ago. The critically endangered Kangaroo Island assassin spider's only known home is in the north-west of the island, where this Jurassic-era spider hides out in moist clumps of leaf litter. In more than a month of searches, and with just a couple more weeks to go, Ogilvie and a few helpers have only found one tiny juvenile. 'We get so excited when we find a good area but then it's deflating. Everything is so dry – it's hardly rained for two years,' says Ogilvie, a conservation biologist working with the charity Invertebrates Australia. Last year, scientists found just one mature female and six juveniles at six locations, all in a 20 sq kilometre-area that includes a block of land owned by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest. Those same locations have come up blank this year. The spiders need the moist microclimate of the leaf litter to survive, but there's a trifecta of threats drying out their habitat and pushing them ever closer to extinction. The spider's last remaining bolthole has been through near-record drought over the last 18 months, with rainfall among the lowest on record since 1900. The black summer bushfires burned through large areas of potential habitat that have not yet recovered, and an invasive plant root disease – known as phytophthora – is damaging the forest canopy and the plants that hold some of the leaf litter where the spiders live, drying out the habitat even further. 'If we look at the risks and be realistic, they're potentially one big fire away from extinction,' says Dr Michael Rix, the principal scientist and curator of arachnology at Queensland Museum, who collected the first specimens of the spider and, with scientific colleague Mark Harvey, formally described them. 'By all objective measures, its existence is phenomenally precarious.' The Kangaroo Island assassin spider is one of 11 invertebrates on the federal government's priority list of threatened species. The assassin family of spiders – which get their name from their habit of slowly stalking and then eating other spiders – are found only in Australia, Madagascar and parts of southern Africa. Kangaroo Island's assassin was found in 2010 by Rix, who, along with Harvey, has described 37 of Australia's 41 assassin spiders. 'We collect this suspended leaf litter and shake it. The spiders close their legs and they drop down. I looked in the tray to see what's there – I knew it was undescribed. It was one of the really memorable moments of my field biology career. Very exciting,' he remembers. Rix says they have the most unusual appearance of any spider, with 'incredible elevated heads and long spear-like mouth parts'. 'They're unmistakeable,' he says. 'They're an early branch in the spider's tree of life. Assassin spiders are ancient and those around today are survivors of 150m years of life on Earth. 'They were only known as fossils before any living ones were found in Madagascar in the 19th century.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Kangaroo Island's species was feared extinct after bushfires swept across the west of the island in the black summer bushfires of 2019 and 2020 until Dr Jess Marsh, a research fellow at the University of Adelaide and an invertebrate conservation biologist based on the island, found two specimens in 2021 in a small patch of unburned vegetation. 'It's being squeezed into smaller and smaller areas,' says Marsh. 'Each survey we do is increasing our confidence that its restricted to this patch of vegetation, and nowhere else.' Marsh and colleagues are now discussing the idea of establishing a breeding program for the spiders in a zoo, creating an 'insurance population' – but removing individuals from the wild carries clear risks that Marsh says wouldn't be taken lightly. 'They've survived mass extinction events and past climate changes – a huge amount. Now in this short period of time, it's humans that are really testing them.' Rix says the precarious situation the spiders find themselves in is part of a much bigger wave of largely unseen extinctions of invertebrates. Officially, Australia lists only one invertebrate as extinct – the Lake Pedder earthworm. But last year, Rix, Marsh and colleagues released research that estimated that since the European invasion of Australia, about 9,000 invertebrates had likely suffered a so-called ghost extinction – 'the loss of undiscovered species that have left no trace.' 'Some people might say, 'who cares about a tiny spider going extinct'?' says Rix. 'But this is part of the quantum of invertebrate extinctions that we're experiencing right now. This might be a problem that creeps up on us. 'There's a concept of conserving evolutionary significant units – retaining diversity that speaks deeply to Earth's evolutionary history. That is what these spiders are – a window into the past. They're survivors. Trying to conserve them is so important.' Marsh and Rix were the only two people to have ever found a Kangaroo Island assassin spider, until this week's discovery – not by a scientist, but an enthusiastic 17-year-old volunteer called Jack Wilson who was filling his time during school holidays. 'It was probably my 10th sieve of the day,' he says. 'They can look like little blobs of dirt, but it's the big neck that gives them away. I'm pretty chuffed. It's crazy.'
West Australian
11-07-2025
- Business
- West Australian
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese looks to strengthen tourism ties with China during tour of Shanghai
Anthony Albanese is spruiking his six-day visit to China as important for Australia's economy and national security as concerns grow over his lack of direct engagement with the US on defence and trade. The three-city tour — Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu — has been cast as part of a wider reset on trade ties with China but comes as the Prime Minister is under pressure over his failure to first meet the US President to argue the case for a tariff carve-out and to Donald Trump's public commitment to the $368 billion trilateral AUKUS defence deal. While he hasn't been able to secure a face-to-face meeting with Mr Trump, Mr Albanese is expected to receive a red carpet reception when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang. The Prime Minister on Friday talked up his Government's efforts to restore the relationship after it took a hit under the Morrison government, saying key commodities previously iced out - like barley, live rock lobster, wine and beef - were now surging ahead. Mr Albanese will be joined on his China trip — his second visit as Prime Minister — by a Business Council of Australia delegation of corporate leaders from the banking, mining and metals industries and higher education. Among the executives joining the Prime Minister are Fortescue's Andrew Forrest, BHP's Geraldine Slattery, HSBC chief Antony Shaw, Rio Tinto's Kellie Parker and the vice-chancellors of Monash and UNSW universities professors Sharon Pickering and Attila Brungs Fortescue executive chairman Andrew Forrest said the Prime Minister's visit could not come at a more critical time for Australia's future. 'To put it bluntly: if Australia and China provide the leadership, then – given the immense industrial platforms that exist in both nations - Australia could build its largest-ever industry in green iron, and China its largest in green steel,' he said. 'The economic benefits would be profound for both countries: tens of thousands of new jobs, an upskilled workforce, and a solution to one of the world's biggest climate threats - the global steel industry.' ANZ's International managing director Simon Ireland is also attending and stressed the importance of China as Australia's largest export market and a gateway to broader trade and investment across Asia. 'For ANZ, a bank that facilitates the movement of goods and capital across borders, China is a strategic partner,' he said. Rio Tinto Australia chief Kellie Parker said the miner worked closely with their Chinese customers and labelled the trip as a 'valuable opportunity to deepen collaboration'. The six-day tour will include a visit to headquarters, a travel behemoth that hosts platforms Skyscanner, Qunar and MakeMyTrip, which all have partnerships with several Australian tourism bodies and businesses. Mainland Chinese visitors spent $9.2 billion in Australia in the year to March 2025, cementing its status as the nation's most valuable tourism market. The 860,000 trips made by Chinese tourists over that period accounted for about a quarter of all international visitor spending in the country. The surge marks a sharp rebound, with visitation up 26 per cent and spending up 28 per cent compared to the previous 12 months. 'Australia's economic relationship with China is important, but so are the community links that underpin it and help build on it,' Mr Albanese said. 'Whether that's our vibrant Australian-Chinese community, Australian footballers in Shanghai or Chinese tourists in Sydney.' He will also meet senior representatives from the Shanghai Port Football Club, including former Socceroo Kevin Muscat.
West Australian
09-07-2025
- Business
- West Australian
Fortescue head of decarbonisation Christiaan Heyning steps down from full-time role
The executive responsible for rolling out the plan to eliminate carbon emissions across Fortescue's sprawling iron ore mining empire is the latest to depart Andrew Forrest's flagship company. Fortescue head of decarbonisation Christiaan Heyning left the business in May after a three-year tenure, but his departure only came to light on Wednesday. It is understood Fortescue may retain his services on an ad-hoc basis going forward. Mr Heyning was implementing a $US6.2 billion ($9.5b) plan unveiled in September 2022 to reduce FMG's carbon emissions to zero by the end of 2030. 'We've now reached an important turning point where decarbonisation is no longer a standalone initiative but is being embedded into the way we run our business,' a Fortescue spokeswoman said. Fortescue's green energy arm has experienced significant turnover within the past two years culminating in the boss of the whole division — Mark Hutchinson — departing the business in May. That month The West Australian revealed Fortescue had laid off about 90 staff working on its Gladstone electrolyser facility in Queensland and its hydrogen division in Perth. Gladstone opened in 2024 as one of Fortescue's most advanced energy-related projects and had been expected to advance to producing green hydrogen this year. It has other green hydrogen projects in Australia and overseas in limbo.
