Queensland’s new draft land-clearing laws aim to put the brakes on years of environmental destruction. But the bill contains several loopholes that are likely to stymie progress.
Australia’s federal environment laws are inadequate to halt Australia’s alarming rates of land clearing and species loss. A more robust set of laws are urgently needed.
The failed attempt to reinstate land clearing regulations in Queensland has prompted ‘panic clearing’, pushing Australia into the global top-ten deforesters.
The outgoing Threatened Species Commissioner has downplayed the importance of land clearing as a threat to Australia’s plants and animals. But it’s the biggest threat, and magnifies the others too.
Dede Rohadi, Centre for International Forestry Research
Zero-burning policy could hurt small-holder farmers. The ban on the use of fire for land clearing has raised the costs to prepare their land for planting and to keep it pest-free.
More than 50 million birds, mammals and reptiles are thought to be killed each year in New South Wales and Queensland by the removal of native vegetation, and planning laws are failing to protect them.
Australia’s Great Northern Savannas are the largest and most intact ecosystem of their kind on Earth. But they still face pressure from grazing, mining and agricultural expansion.
The Banksia woodlands of the Swan Coastal Plain are home to thousands of species, many unique. But they are gradually being swallowed by Perth, one of the world’s most sprawling cities.
Victoria’s volcanic plains offer fertile ground for grasslands teeming with wildflowers. But that same fertility has also made the plains a tempting target for grazers and growers, and developers too.
Science was instrumental in working out how to clear brigalow forest to make way for farming in the 20th century. Now it’s trying to bring these iconic forests back.
The Leuser ecosystem in northern Sumatra is home to some of the world’s rarest and best-loved animals. Thanks to a new government moratorium on land clearing, conservationists have enjoyed a big win.
After some unusually wet years, our landscape and ecosystems have once again returned to poorer conditions that were last experienced during the Millennium Drought.
Growing population, growing demand for food, climate change: Australia’s rural lands are facing a number of pressures. So how can we sustainably use them in the future?