Tasmania

The Landscape Recovery Foundation is asking Tasmania's native orchid photographers to balance their passion with care, warning that repeated visits to the same sites, amplified by social media, can damage plants, seedlings and the soil fungi orchids depend on. With more than 200 orchid species recorded in the state and 77 listed as threatened, the foundation has run a workshop for photographers and published guidance covering everything from staying on formed tracks to keeping rare locations off social media.

Tasmania's whisky industry, which rose from a 150-year ban to become a global award-winner, is confronting its most severe challenge yet as a worldwide downturn forces distillers to pause production and cut staff. Producers are calling for a federal excise overhaul while hoping the state's reputation for quality will see it through.