UPDATE 28 February: 100,000 hectares of Queensland forest has been lost in unexplained land clearing and require further investigation, according to the latest government data. Read the release here.
A recent report highlights the extent of Queensland's deforestation problem, with recently decimated landscapes including more than 1 million hectares of forest cleared for beef from 2014-2019.
The report also found that:
- Land clearing in Queensland has increased, but was also underestimated in the past
- Deforestation for beef pastures destroyed habitats for 388 nationally threatened species and 14 threatened ecological communities over the five year study period.
In 2017, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk promised that "a re-elected Palaszczuk Government will once again drive down tree clearing rates by legislating to end broad-scale clearing of remnant vegetation."
In 2018 some improvements to the Vegetation Management Act 1999 (VMA) were made but those changes did not go far enough, loopholes remain that allow broadscale clearing.
This latest report clearly details the impact of those loopholes and the effect they are having on Queensland’s iconic plant and animal species like the koala, squatter pigeon, ooline and shiny-leaved ironbark.
Queensland has already lost far too much of our iconic natural landscapes and wildlife habitat to land-clearing.
Will you email the premier to ask her to to protect our forests and put an end to mass deforestation once and for all?