Tree-clearing skyrockets in Queensland
QUEENSLAND’S tree-clearing rates have skyrocketed, with 395,000ha bulldozed last year – almost half of that in Great Barrier Reef catchments.
The figure is 100,000ha more than that recorded in 2014-15 and almost double that of 2012-13, when laws were reTHE laxed by the Newman government.
Planning Minister Jackie Trad said an unsustainable 1000 football fields were being felled a day, mostly for cattle pasture, and a third was remnant, old-growth native forest.
The latest Statewide Landcover and Trees Study Report shows clearing only escalated last year as the Palaszczuk
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Government failed in a legislative crackdown to outlaw broadscale clearing and tighten rules to protect riverbank vegetation across Great Barrier Reef catchments.
Ms Trad declared Labor would push ahead, making the issue an election commitment at the upcoming poll because it was “the right thing to do”.
Opposition natural resources spokesman Andrew Cripps said Labor was “farmer-bashing and figure fudging” ahead of an election. He claimed the report did not include regrowth in grazing and farming land
But Environment Minister Steven Miles said the “devastating data” was “worse than my worst fears” and would be viewed dimly by UNESCO.