The Wilderness Society says the repeal is a tragedy for some of the last free-flowing rivers on the planet.

The group’s chairman Bob Morrish said opening up the Channel Country to irrigation and unconventional gas developments has been met with opposition.

Dr Morrish said there was “overwhelming local support” for the Channel Country Wild Rivers Declaration when the Wild Rivers Act was introduced in 2005, after some initial scepticism.

The rivers of western Queensland’s Lake Eyre Basin – Cooper Creek, Georgina River and Diamantina river – were protected under Queensland’s Wild Rivers Act. 

“That excellent consultation process resulted in overwhelming support for the declaration because it ensured our pristine rivers and their floodplains would continue to support the aspirations of traditional owners, a thriving organic beef industry and lucrative tourism ventures,” Dr Morrish said.

“The entire community was thoroughly engaged in the process involving 140 public meetings across the region over three years. And we absolutely supported the Wild Rivers legislation because we were confident our activities could and would continue indefinitely.”

He said locals were “bitterly disappointed” that Natural Resources and Mines Minister Andrew Cripps would repeal the Act in the next sitting of parliament.

“We are furious that local stakeholders have not been consulted at all about the planned changes,” Dr Morrish said.

The repeal of the Wild Rivers Act and amendments to other legislation was because of  lobbying from narrow corporate interests including the oil and gas company Santos that holds extensive shale gas exploration tenements in the Channel Country, Dr Morrish said.

The Wild Rivers Act would be replaced with much weaker regulations including changes to mapping that were “unaccountable”.

But the Newman government says it reflects a Federal Court decision earlier this year, and a new framework will ensure river systems are protected.

Environment Minister Andrew Powell has told parliament that all former Wild River sites will now be declared strategic environmental areas.

Planning decisions for those areas will now be made through either local government planning schemes, or regional interest development approvals at the state level.

He said the new system would reduce complexity for development in local communities and maintain environmental values.

Dams and weirs in strategic environmental areas will require a regional interest development approval, as will mining and broadacre cropping activities.

Mr Powell said the changes would reset the imbalance created by the Wild Rivers Act, particularly on Cape York.

But the Wilderness Society said the repeal was a tragedy and would do away with buffer zones created under the Wild Rivers Act to protect rivers from risky development such as strip mining, intensive agriculture and in-stream dams.

It said the Newman government trashed the laws to satisfy miners and developers.

‘‘The repeal of the Wild Rivers Act will once again expose sensitive, pristine rivers to destructive development threats,’’ the society’s Queensland campaign manager Tim Seelig said.

‘‘In its place, the Newman government will run with a dog’s breakfast of weaker policies, regulation and ever-changing maps which will operate without any parliamentary oversight and will lead to arbitrary decision-making.’’

The Opposition’s environment spokesperson Jackie Trad said the environment would suffer with the loss of laws intended to stop over-extraction and protect vulnerable ecosystems.

She also accused Mr Powell of misrepresenting a recent Federal Court ruling about the Wild Rivers laws.

In April this year, the Federal Court declared invalid development restrictions on the Archer, Lockhart and Stewart basins, made under the Beattie Labor government’s Wild Rivers Act of 2005.

‘‘The court decision did not overturn the Wild Rivers Act as the government has attempted to claim,’’ Ms Trad told Parliament.

She said it had identified ‘‘process issues’’ with the declaration of those three rivers, and the court ruling did not undermine declarations for the Wenlock, the gulf and channel country, and Hinchinbrook and Fraser islands.