Australia's political parties urged to act as UN panel issues grim extinction warning

Environmentalists say Australia should be at the forefront of a global deal to save nature

Australia's major political parties are facing calls to explain what role they will play in securing a global deal to save nature and the human populations reliant on it after a major scientific report warned a million species across the world face extinction.

The first-of-its-kind assessment by an international scientific panel convened by the United Nations, known as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, warns species are declining at a rate unprecedented in human history, with three-quarters of land-based environments and two-thirds of the marine environment significantly altered.