A PROMINENT koala ecologist says a recent campaign against the beef industry from an environmental group is not creating constructive dialogue on land clearing.

University of Queensland’s Bill Ellis has spent the majority of his career studying koala populations in regional Qld, with one of his main findings being that some of the country’s largest and most healthy koala populations are on land that is also grazed by cattle.

But a recent fundraising campaign from Greenpeace has been painting a different picture of the industry using phrases like “as you read this, the homes of native animals are being destroyed, and animals that can’t move fast enough to escape are being crushed to death. It’s shocking that this is happening in our own backyard, but it’s devastatingly true.”

Dr Ellis studying koalas on a grazing property in Central Queensland.

Dr Ellis said he would like to see groups like Greenpeace take a different approach to its fundraising campaigns.

“Greenpeace could be a major actor for progress especially in the primary production space,” he said.

“If they worked hard to promote ethically produced food and made those graziers that are protecting biodiversity the face of Greenpeace campaigns to drive consumer practice that rewarded good land stewardship in the long term.”

Greenpeace recently told Beef Central that it was willing to work with producers on deforestation. But its fundraising campaign has been squarely aimed at the beef industry, claiming that converting land to pasture for beef production is the main driver of deforestation in Australia.

It recently put out a deforestation report card on eight major beef supply chains – including supermarkets, processors and McDonalds – claiming the industry has scored an ‘F’ on its efforts to end deforestation. The organisation has been asking for support to pressure the companies.

Dr Ellis spoke at an AgForce forum during this month’s Beef 2024 event in Rockhampton, where he said habitat clearing remains a significant threat to koala populations. He also spoke about his difficulty in trying to get Governments to adopt models where producers are incentivised to protect areas where koalas and cattle are co-grazing.

In response to Greenpeace’s use of koalas as the face of its campaign, he said it overlooks some key points.

“I do think the koala is the face of some campaigns, and in the case of the cattle industry, it overlooks the co-existence of so many cattle properties and koalas, and in the process just creates a divide that we are still trying to cross,” he said.

“If we want to protect the many species including koalas that are in danger in grazing country, it is not appropriate to put just the koala as the face of the campaign: this misses the point, paints every farmer as bad and actually decreases public understanding of what else is disappearing as a result of land clearing.

“We cannot show that we value species by simply putting a koala face on a billboard and yelling at farmers (in particular) to change their practice.”