Queensland bushland being destroyed on 'industrial scale', says green group

Queensland bushland is being destroyed on an “industrial scale”, with approvals for land clearing underway creating the equivalent of nearly 2% of Australia’s annual CO₂ emissions, according to an environmental group.

The Wilderness Society said leaked data showed land clearing had tripled in Queensland over three years, after the former Liberal National government removed protection for woodlands to enable intensive agriculture.

The largest single example underway is the Olive Vale property on Cape York, from which 330sq km of “world heritage quality” woodland is being razed.

The LNP ruled out grazing as an example of the “high value agriculture” intended to benefit when passing the new laws in 2013.

However, Olive Vale owner Ryan Global is a beef industry player which has flagged increasing the number of cattle on the property from 15,000 to 25,000.

The razing of the Olive Vale bushland puts 17 threatened species at risk and increases runoff and pollution into Great Barrier Reef waters, according to the Wilderness Society.

They claim the impact on wildlife meant the project should have been referred to the commonwealth under species protection laws and have called for an urgent investigation by federal environment minister Greg Hunt.

The environmentalists called for the new Labor state government to urgently tighten up land clearing laws which allowed the LNP to approve at least 1130 sq km of bushland for clearance.

Wilderness society Queensland campaign manager Tim Seelig said this amount of clearing would create the equivalent of 9.66 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or nearly 2 per cent of Australia’s annual emissions.

The LNP changes removed protection for another 7750 sq km of remnant native vegetation, he said.

Seelig said Queensland was “once the land clearing capital of Australia” but had led the way in the last decade with land clearing restrictions that “singlehandedly allowed Australia to meet its international climate commitments”.

But the former LNP government had “opened floodgates to industrial-scale land clearing” which “made a mockery” of commonwealth attempts to keep trees in the ground through its “direct action” policy, Seelig said.

“Despite pre-election commitments to restore strong land clearing controls in Queensland, the Palaszczuk government has been slow off the mark in dealing with this issue,” he said.

“We need immediate action stop immediate clearing cases, and a block new large scale land clearing applications, while and the government investigate all large scale approvals granted under the LNP.

“This should also include the immediate release of the government’s latest land clearing data. We understand that clearing rates are rapidly rising, and are likely to spiral out of control without action, but there should be maximum transparency on what’s going on.”

Comment has been sought from the federal environment department, Queensland deputy premier and planning minister Jackie Trad, and the LNP state opposition.