Australia Formally Recognises Fungi as a Third Kingdom of Living Things
- Gauri Khanna
- 21 hours ago
- 3 min read
The Australian Labor Party's national conference has formally recognised fungi as a distinct kingdom of life, separate from flora and fauna, marking a potential turning point for how the country's environmental laws treat the fungal world.
Australia is estimated to host up to 250,000 fungal species, yet fewer than 12,000 have been formally described, and not a single fungal species is currently listed as endangered under national law.
The move could trigger an amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, bringing fungi into biodiversity assessments, environmental planning, and threatened species monitoring for the first time.
Australia has long prided itself on protecting its extraordinary biodiversity, from its marsupials to its ancient forests. But for decades, an entire kingdom of life has been left out of that conversation. A resolution passed at the Australian Labor Party's recent national conference may be about to change that, with federal Environment Minister Murray Watt explicitly recognising fungi as part of Australia's natural environment and biodiversity, distinct from and equal to both flora and fauna.
A Kingdom Hidden in Plain Sight
The push for recognition did not come from government alone. It was driven by years of advocacy from mycologists, biologists, ecologists, and citizen scientists, most notably through Fungimap, an Australian grassroots organisation that monitors and documents fungal biodiversity. Catherine Marciniak, a Fungimap committee member and ALP grassroots member from the Ballina branch in northern New South Wales, was one of the central figures behind the resolution. Her argument was straightforward: if something is invisible to policy, it cannot be measured, and if it cannot be measured, it cannot be conserved.
The concern is not hypothetical. Marciniak cited a critically endangered rainforest close to her home that has been formally surveyed for plants, animals, and even butterflies, yet has never been surveyed for fungi. The result is a complete blind spot in conservation science for what Fungimap president Michael Priest describes as at least a third of all living things. As Priest, a former mycologist with the NSW Department of Primary Industries, noted, there are more fungal species than plant species, and if insects were removed from the animal kingdom, fungi would outnumber animals too.
What Recognition Actually Means
The ALP's revised national platform now commits the party to conserving and restoring "flora, fauna, fungi, oceans and waterways." The practical consequence of that addition, should the government act on it, could be an amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the cornerstone of Australia's federal environmental law. Such an amendment would formally bring fungi within the scope of biodiversity assessments, environmental planning decisions, threatened species monitoring, and publicly funded research.
At present, Australia has no fungal species listed as endangered under national legislation, a situation Priest described as "madness" given the scale of what remains unknown. Of an estimated 250,000 fungal species in Australia, only around 12,000 have been formally described by science. The gap is not merely academic. Fungi play documented roles in nutrient recycling, soil health, carbon storage, and supporting the health of up to 95 per cent of the world's trees. Priest argues they underpin virtually every process in terrestrial ecosystems, yet conservation frameworks have treated them as background noise.
The recognition also aligns Australia with a growing international trend. Chile and the United Kingdom have already moved to formally acknowledge fungi as a separate category of organism in their environmental frameworks. Separately, the word "funga," used to describe the fungi of a particular region or period, has recently been added to the Cambridge Dictionary, a small but symbolically significant step in embedding fungal biodiversity into common scientific and public language.
Limitations and the Road Ahead
Recognition at a party conference is not the same as legislation. The ALP's national platform sets political direction but does not automatically translate into law. Any amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act would require parliamentary process, and the timeline for that remains unclear. The deeper challenge is capacity: with the vast majority of Australia's fungal species still undescribed, building the scientific knowledge base needed to assess conservation status will take considerable time and investment. Recognition, as advocates are the first to acknowledge, is only the beginning.
