Since the weakening of land clearing controls in 2012, over 560,000 hectares of Queensland’s forest and woodland is known to have been cleared, which is an area nearly twice the size of the Australian Capital Territory.

Despite the greater good, a barrage of misinformation threatens to mislead the public and delay progress.

This distortion and fear mongering is irresponsible and unhelpful.  

In the two years between 2012 and 2014, land clearing in Queensland has generated over 60 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

It has also led to the bulldozing of 200,000 hectares of known threatened species habitat, as well as increased soil loss and pollution of streams and increased pressure on to the already damaged Great Barrier Reef.

It is extreme negligence to allow this to continue and damage Australia’s natural capital and international reputation.

Although it has taken over 12 months for the Palaszczuk government to introduce the Vegetation Management (Reinstatement) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill to Parliament, its urgency should not be understated.

The Bill restores provisions that were previously accepted by the agricultural sector in 2006.

Again in 2009, the Bligh government moved to regulate, not ban, clearing of high value regrowth.

At the time Agforce welcomed the changes, saying; “the new legislation balances productive land management while maintaining biodiversity values.”

A generous $130 million assistance package was also provided for the agricultural sector.

But in 2015, over 112,000 hectares of tropical woodland and forest was slated for clearing under the guise of so-called ‘high value agriculture’ with nearly half already destroyed.

This occurred almost exclusively on two properties in Queensland’s Gulf country and on Cape York Peninsula.

The recently introduced reinstatement Bill, will close the loophole for so-called high value agriculture that currently allows broad-scale clearing.

Further, high value regrowth will again be regulated unless already exempt.

Agricultural projects have always had the ability to apply to the Coordinator General for coordinated project status, providing an exemption to Beattie-Bligh era laws and those proposed for reinstatement under the Palaszczuk government.

Claims by Hinchinbrook Liberal National Party MP Andrew Cripps and others that the agricultural sector will come to a screaming halt are simply political scare-mongering and damaging to the sector.

There is no correlation between agricultural production and Queensland’s vegetation laws.

Furthermore, there is growing international consumer demand for deforestation-free products and a number of major suppliers have already committed to eliminating deforestation from their supply chains by 2020.

Without it we are doomed to repeat the mistakes made in southern Australia where unregulated land clearing delivered a crisis of salinity, soil loss, river degradation and species extinctions leaving taxpayers with a $10 billion repair bill. 

And our brand as a clean, green and safe home for agriculture could be left in tatters.

Andrew Picone,

Northern Australia Program Officer,

The Australian Conservation Foundation,

Cairns