Queensland to Forfeit Bushcare Millions
10/6/99
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Title: Queensland to Forfeit Bushcare Millions
Source: Queensland Courier Mail
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: October 6, 1999
Byline: Siobhain Ryan
QUEENSLAND will forfeit $34million in federal funding because it
cannot plant enough trees in the next 20 months to make up for having
the nation's highest bush clearing rate.
The money is the balance of Queensland's $50million share of the
Federal Government's $350million Bushcare programme. The programme
will only fund states which show no net loss of native vegetation by
June 2001.
State Environment Minister Rod Welford said the Federal Government
would no longer foot the bill for rehabilitating the land if
widespread clearing continued.
"If we don't achieve a better approach than we have, the Federal
Government is going to cut off Natural Heritage Trust funding," he
said.
Environment Australia data show Queensland's replanting rate falls
well short of the amount lost to clearing.
This means the target to claim the $34million will be almost
impossible to meet.
State Government concern over the accelerating rate of clearing has
prompted moves to levy $30,000 fines on freehold land owners,
including hobby farmers, who clear without permits.
The Courier-Mail has learned that the fines, now confined to
leasehold land, may apply to all property owners if the Government
accepts recommendations from its Vegetation Management Advisory
Committee.
Landholders would face the fines if they cleared more than 5ha over
five years without a permit.
Queensland had promised to plant more trees than it cut by June 30,
2001, as a signatory to the draft national vegetation framework which
underpins the Bushcare programme. But latest statistics show that the
state lost 340,000ha of native bush a year from 1995-97.
That was 18percent higher than the previous five years and equivalent
to clearing an area the size of a football field every minute of
every day.
And the rate appears set to accelerate, with a threefold increase in
the amount of virgin vegetation approved for clearing to August this
year compared with last year.
The Queensland Conservation Council and Queensland Greens say the
money must be withheld if the State Government fails to introduce
clearing controls on freehold land or tighten existing regulation on
leasehold properties.
"If the state doesn't deliver regulatory reform then it doesn't
deserve the funding from the Commonwealth," conservation council head
Imogen Zethoven said.
"Land clearing is the single greatest threat to Queensland's unique
biodiversity."
Matthew Athanassiadis, the mayor of Belyando whose Clermont-based
shire ranked among the top five for land cleared from 1995-97, said
the calls for strict controls ignored economic realities.
"No-one else is going to provide jobs and growth in our shire unless
we develop the land," Cr Athanassiadis said.
"Times are getting that tough that farming isn't as profitable as it
was. You can't just keep driving down prices of crops at the
supermarket and not expect farmers to cut any corners," he said.
"They're not the cause of the land clearing. They're the results of
the economics that are forcing them to do it."