One of Greenpeace’s examples of recent deforestation in Queensland. Photo: Greenpeace
WHILE the cattle industry is currently working its way through vegetation management legislation being imposed by companies and export markets, some have been asking “isn’t this a job for the Government?”
Cattle Australia is currently working through submissions to its draft definition of deforestation in the Australian context, in a bid to communicate routine land management practices to the European Union, banks and big supply chains who are all setting “deforestation-free” targets.
While there have been plenty of opinions about the way the industry should be handling the supply chain pressure, some have been asking what Australian Governments are doing to make sure their laws are not being completely negated.
Vegetation management has been a source of contention in Australian politics for decades, with Governments having to weigh up pressure from environmental groups with a range of other considerations within the electorate.
But as Dr Stephen Wiedemann from Integrity Ag & Environmental told a Beef 2024 forum, processors are now being pushed by the environmental groups to become “quasi-regulators” themselves by guaranteeing their customers that their beef is “deforestation free”.
Processors needing to assess specifications for customers down the supply chain is nothing new to the industry, the question is more about whether vegetation management laws should be left to the democratic process and not the boards of big companies. As one producer said earlier this week “we are a first world country after all”.
Both agriculture minister Murray Watt and Nationals leader David Littleproud have expressed concern about the EU restrictions. Minister Watt wrote the EU earlier this year calling on the union to delay the import regulations.
Mr Littleproud told Beef Central he was concerned about the flow-on effects of the deforestation targets.
“The Nationals are deeply concerned that an EU trade deal will be used as a stalking horse to enforce tougher vegetation management laws that will lead to agriculture-destroying changes,” he said.
“The Nationals are also concerned about Labor’s new climate-related financial disclosure policy, forcing entities to document their indirect greenhouse gas emissions, known as ‘Scope 3’. This unfair and bureaucratic burden comes despite Australian farmers already having some of the best land management practices in the world.”
Given the deforestation targets have been in the works since the Coalition was in power, Mr Littleproud was asked what the Government was doing.
“In Government, The Nationals introduced the Agricultural Biodiversity Stewardship program, which provided incentives and gave farmers the tools they needed to boost their environmental credentials in carbon sequestration and biodiversity.”
Agriculture minister Murray Watt was also asked what the Government was doing in response to incoming targets, this article will updated if there is a response.
But if the case of Westpac becoming the first Australian bank to set a deforestation target earlier this year is anything to go by, the Government and The Nationals appear to differ.
Mr Littleproud urged the Government to intervene saying “Governments set the laws – not the boards of big banks”. Minister Watt said the Government was not going to intervene in business decisions.
Where has the deforestation pressure come from?
Many familiar participants in the Australian vegetation management debate over recent decades are behind the “deforestation-free” targets.
One of the leaders is the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), which labelled Australia a “deforestation front” putting agricultural management in the eastern states alongside the clearing of the Amazon rainforest.
The WWF is also a founding organisation of the Science Based Targets initiative, which has signed on companies like McDonalds, Coles, Woolworths and processors – pushing them to set deforestation targets. It is also a founding member of the Accountability Framework initiative, which sets roadmaps and definitions for deforestation targets.
The organisation played a significant role in pushing the European Union down the deforestation-free line.
Other environmental groups have obviously seen benefit in calling for action on deforestation and painting the beef industry as the main cause of it.
Greenpeace, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society have all been running campaigns and calling for tax deductable donations before the end of June. Greenpeace went as far as to superimpose koalas into McDonald’s burgers and into meat wrappers on supermarket shelves.
While calling for donations, the groups are also trying to influence the shareholders and boards of the big companies.
Former Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef president and current executive committee member Ian McConnel told Beef Central earlier this year that the deforestation-free targets were different to other environmental initiatives because the companies were unlikely to use it as an advertising slogan, it was more about not being associated with it.
CA’s land management commitment is hoping to communicate Australian land management to the supply chains and banks, with the next draft due at the end of the month.
Anything developed by WWF is unlikely to be producer friendly. Their history as disruptors is too long. There are other international definitions which are more usable on agricultural land.
It would seem that those producers that graze cattle on land types where vegetation continues to regrow are on their own!
If we assume that WWF are the subject matter expert’s(the others are on the same page it seems)and the Accountability Framework Initiative is the program we should be working from.
I would support Eric Barker and Beef Central in asking the relevant politicians and the regulatory bodies what are they doing to ensure the rights of law abiding citizens and land owners are protected?
The document reads: The Accountability Framework calls for eliminating deforestation and ecosystem conversion from supply chains. Doing so helps companies mitigate risk while protecting critical values including carbon storage, biodiversity, water supplies, and the wellbeing of local people and communities.
Related Definitions
The framework provides consensus-based definitions to guide the achievement of no-deforestation and no-conversion supply chains.
Deforestation: The loss of natural forest as a result of:
1/. Conversion to agriculture or other land use;
2/. Conversion to a plantation; or
3/. Severe or sustained degradation
Conversion: Change of a natural ecosystem to another land use or profound change in the natural ecosystem’s species composition, structure, or function.
I have asked this question before, how did we end up in the current situation?
I will use the Queensland situation again because Queensland is the state that is most often mentioned as a deforestation hotspot.
Vegetation laws have been in place since the year 2000, the clearing of remnant vegetation(natural forest) is highly regulated.
Under what circumstances could the claims about deforestation in beef supply claims be anything but a lie using what is in the above?
I have a question for David Littleproud, I would ask the same question of Dr Steve Wiedemann, when are you going to ensure that landholders with natural forest are going to be able to account for the carbon in their natural forest considering the protecting the critical values including carbon storage definition?
Hang onto your hat when biodiversity becomes a value proposition, it is way more complex than carbon and look at the mess accounting for carbon has become in this country!
As to the wellbeing of local people and communities, obviously the wellbeing of people and communities associated with beef production don’t matter, does anyone consider the fact that what we are faced with in the constant lies and propaganda campaign is highly stressful.
The reaction from those that were asked to comment in the above article not only add to my concerns, but to be frank I find them insulting as a law abiding land owner and taxpayer of this country!
What we need to learn, urgently, as both an industry & society at large … is just because some noisy extremist minority is pushing fir something, does NOT mean that we automatically must give it to them!
Where will it end if we do not learn this lesson?
We have to be prepared to say “NO”, and be prepared to fight the public opinion media warfare that will follow. We don’t have to appease these groups, we merely have to win the court of public opinion, & majority are on our side.
This is where our multimillion levy funds should be directed.
Hi Michelle,
Unfortunately our multi million dollar levy funding can’t be used for lobbying purposes.
It is up to the likes of Cattle Australia and State Farming Organisations which I can tell you from experience are severely under-resourced and often reliant on volunteers who have their own beef businesses to run!
It is very time consuming, but not only that a lot of people pay their own way to attend meetings and such. I am sure you would agree that this is an embarrassment to our industry, I have seen some very capable people not continue to contribute, which I expect in many cases was because they couldn’t afford to anymore.
But our levy funds are supposed to be available for marketing, correct?
“Lobbying” the public opinion through effective marketing is even more crucial than lobbying government directly.
I achknowledge that many individuals put a great deal of personal resources into various organisations, but NONE of them put enough effort into two-way engagement with their producer member base & being an accurate representative voice of the member majority … thus members loose interest as they do not feel like a valued part of the organisation or that the organisation speaks for them.
David Hill, using levy funds to correct misinformation is not lobbying. It is marketing. You should note the gymnastics that environmental organisations use to get around rules that, as tax deductable charities, they should not be involved in politics.
The Land Management Commitment being developed by Cattle Australia will have the capacity to define different vegetation management systems using the Accountability Framework Initiative – which is globally acceptable terminology and as Eric says was co-developed by WWF, so there should be no argument!