Battle against land clearing

Residents plan meeting

TOOWOOMBA residents and activists are preparing to ramp up efforts to push for tighter tree-clearing laws across the region, with a meeting planned featuring councillors.

The Darling Downs Environment Council will host a special community tree forum at the Highfields Tavern on December 1, after more than 6800 people signed Toowoomba ornithologist Scot McPhie’s petition pushing for landclearing reforms within the council.

The petition was created in response to significant portions of land around Highfields being cleared for a number of new housing projects in recent months.

All habitat was cleared legally by developers, much to the anger of residents.

The meeting will be held a few weeks after councillors narrowly voted against a motion exploring short-term options to protect more habitat before the next planning scheme is approved.

The motion by councillor Bill Cahill, who is a speaker at the forum, split the elected officials 5-5.

Mr McPhie said he was disappointed to see the motion fail, noting the planning scheme would take at least another three years to be implemented.

“We want to work out what areas need protection across the region and how we can get council to protect them before 2025,” he said.

“It’s just an interim measure (that we want) until we get something in place — it would be better than nothing.

“The council is reliant on state mapping, and my understanding is that mapping is a bit inaccurate, but we want to develop a system where people can map and identify individual trees.”

Mr Cahill was contacted for comment.

In another plan to help protect key koala habitat, councillor Tim McMahon successfully pushed through a motion for the council to access a part of the federal government’s new $225m Saving Native Species program.

Mr McMahon said the money could be first used to identify koala areas across the Toowoomba region not covered by state mapping currently.

“It all comes down to knowing what’s there first, and it joins into the other conversations we’re having at the moment because we’re trying to keep these trees maintained,” he said.

“We have the community asking what is going on …”