A farm lobby group has hit back at a research paper released this week by the University of Queensland, arguing that environmental laws were failing to slow deforestation rates in Australia.
The report looked for clearing events through publicly available satellite data across Northern Australia to see if it complied with regulations across state, territory and federal jurisdictions – to find that many clearing events were compliant with one but not all.
“Queensland had by far the highest rates of deforestation with 75 per cent of cases exempt from assessment under the state’s main vegetation management law,” lead author and PhD candidate Hannah Thomas said.
“In contrast, most clearing in the Northern Territory was assessed, although approval was almost always the outcome.
“In those cases, development of the agricultural and mining sectors across northern Australia was driving the clearing, and particularly linked to pasture development for beef cattle.”
Close to WWF lobbying position
The research was supported by WWF-Australia, which is known as the organisation that drove the current focus on “deforestation”.
It labelled Australia a “deforestation front” in 2021 and has been a driving force behind Europe’s deforestation-linked import regulations that are set to come into play later this year. WWF is also a founding organisation of an initiative called Science Based Targets – which is making big supply chain companies like McDonald’s set deforestation targets.
WWF has also been active in the debate over Australia’s vegetation management laws for decades, particularly in Qld. The organisation also uses the satellite data to argue that vegetation management laws need to be tightened.
Dr Martin Taylor is an author on the UQ paper and is formerly a researcher with WWF, who has been campaigning for tighter vegetation management laws.
It uses these lobbying efforts for fundraising.
AgForce chief executive officer Michael Guerin said the WWF has been lobbying against land that is exempt from clearing regulations. He said the UQ study struck a similar tone.
“The WWF has been campaigning against Category X land for years, using reports like this get its point across and calling for donations while they are doing it,” he said,
“A quick look at the paper and you can see it is similar to WWF campaigns that have been running for years – cherry-picked facts and only telling one side of the story.
“These reports paint everything as deforestation, even when it its weed control or regrowth control. Clearing regrowth is an important part of agricultural production and maintaining biodiversity. We have been trying to work with them on getting some actual outcomes for years but they won’t come to the table.”
Beef Central has asked UQ if it had any concerns about the integrity of the paper, given the close association with WWF.
What is deforestation?
As deforestation legislation is being developed and is often used in reference to clearing of virgin reference in places like the Amazon, definitions of forest has become an import part of legislation and claims.
While definitions are being debated, thresholds that include vegetation height and canopy cover are part of current frameworks.
Beef Central asked UQ what definition of forest was used to make the make the claim that deforestation was a problem. One of its researchers told us that it was more general clearing and that “deforestation” had become the internationally accepted term.
The paper also made the point that forest thresholds were not accounted for: “some of northern Australia’s sparse woodlands may not meet an internationally recognized definition of forest.
We therefore refer to loss of native forest and woodland vegetation in relation to our analysis as clearing, a term often used in Australia to define removal of any type of native vegetation.”
The Latte sipping suburbanites in the Capital Cities think any land past the local park is the bush and wouldn’t know the front of a cow to the back of the cow.
Yet they take it upon themselves to fund these activist groups.
They get a good mightier-than-thou feeling that they are saving the world when doing the opposite.
These people should mind their own business instead of deciding what the custodians of the land can and cannot do.
More activist “science” to attempt to draw the veil of respectability across what are inaccurate and cherry picked claims.
All international definitions of deforestation exclude agricultural land and land for urban development from accusations of deforestation.
The areas that are exempt under Cat X are assuredly regrowth and legal to clear for good reason. That does not stop activists from raising money against them.
The main driver of the clearing of true virgin forest in Queensland is occurring for renewables, access roads for renewable and power lines for renewables.
The national and international green groups are entirely silent about this cause and use agriculture as a red herring.
I wonder what their donors would think if they knew the real situation.
Poorly resourced and managed National Parks , forestry, etc. Have resulted in devastating loss of native vegetation in our area and many parts of Australia from bush fires.
Dr Bill Burrows’ Report showed, after decades of monitoring, that the grazed woodlands of Queensland – that vast area of country between the coastal belt and the far western downs and dunes – had actually increased in tree numbers and density overall despite the prevailing clearing for development at that time. This is why the ‘Burrows Report’ which irrefutably and scientifically described this natural revegetation factor was locked away in Cabinet papers by the Beattie government. So here we go again – a report showing tree clearance and thinning that will not show the amount of naturally occurring revegetation constantly occurring in our Queensland grazed woodlands. Proper science requires the whole of the evidence to be provided on the subject matter not merely a selected portion to prove a point. Until a measure is provided of what natural revegetation has occurred in the same timeframe as the clearing or thinning then this must be seen as selective science to pursue a pre-determined outcome.
Thanks for the mention Jock. Here is a link to a talk based on a literature review which I prepared for a PRA rally in 2005. Beef Central readers may find some information of interest in its content. Most citations are to actual research papers and published books. The few Web addresses cited may no longer be available since the material was put together some 20 years ago. Nevertheless, I think readers will still find the substance of the talk remains very relevant today. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ucwgPOWA2r2EY6nlh8dIgq-vOoBblzen/view
Well said Jock
This land clearing rubbish gets rolled out by the WWF every year – and every year it is cherry picked bulldust, our tree cover in Australia has INCREASED this century
The NFF, Agforce, cattle groups should be on the front foot calling it out
You’re not wrong Jason, compared to the year 2000 (132.91 Mha) our national forest area has net increased this century (133.57 Mha in 2021).
But you also need to be careful with the facts. Our forestry cover in 2021 (last reported data out of ABARES and DAFF’s State of the Forests Report) is still less than our forest cover back in 1989.
We really only started to nationally turn the ship around in 2008 when we hit a historic low or 130.78 Mha of forest. It has been a national net gain year on year since then (as I said, back to 133.57 Mha in 2021) but SA and WA have carried the nation.
On a state level, NSW and QLD pushed over 6.6 million hectares from 1989 to 2008 and largely there has been no regrowth in either state to date. SA and WA account for the vast majority of national forest growth which props up the national figures.
So we are doing well as a nation but not every state should pat themselves on the back.
Good to hear Agforce are having a say in this issue as most grazing families have been involved in approved tree clearing plans for more than 20 years. and the clearing being called deforestation is actually approved regrowth control. However, PhD candidate Hannah Thomas and co. does not let the truth get in the way of a sensational story. These WWF and university based extremists have probably only ever been involved in desktop studies and not interviewed any of the farmers onsite as to the reality of the clearing. I wonder when these extreme groups are going to start asking the wind farm and solar farm developers for their tree clearing and deforestation approvals – oh thats right, wind farms can clear anything without approvals – sounds like double standards.