Amazon has announced an investment to help protect threatened animal species in Australia. The country is key to the planet's overall biodiversity but has also faced high rates of extinction.
The 2.5 million Australian dollar (roughly $1.6 million) investment is going to a three-year project to be executed in collaboration with Odonata Foundation. The nonprofit works to recover populations of endangered animals, including eastern quoll, eastern barred bandicoot, southern brush-tailed rock-wallaby, bush stone-curlew, and eastern bettong.
Odonata intends to leverage its "500-in-5" framework, which aims to establish populations of 500 for each species across five different protected locations. The goal is to achieve genetic diversity along with redundancy in case of disasters.
The effort will be funded through Amazon's Right Now Climate Fund, which the company says has invested $67.4 million in 20 projects across 15 countries since 2019, including one to combine seaweed farms and offshore wind farms.
"What's exciting about Odonata's approach is that it can be scaled up to help endangered species around the world," said Janet Menzies, Amazon Australia country manager, in a company release. "The project will combine the latest genetic research with climate data to give these species the best chance of survival as temperatures rise and extreme weather events increase."
Biodiversity is facing steep challenges in Australia and around the world, so the support is welcome, but Amazon's track record on the environment is still patchy.
Amazon's business model hinges on overconsumption, and the company produces large amounts of waste. It also uses data centers that consume huge amounts of energy and water. And the frequent luxury-level travel of chief executive officer Jeff Bezos produces loads of pollution too.
Odonata remains excited to continue its conservation mission in Australia with fresh funding.
"Australia has one of the world's highest rates of species extinction," said its founder, Nigel Sharp, per the release. "With climate change and natural disasters increasing, we must act now to protect our iconic native animals. Our innovative recovery model represents a world-first in species conservation."
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