ACTION ALERT: End Out of Control Australian Land Clearing!
08/07/00
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
by Forests.org
Australia is famous for its Koalas, Kangaroos, and other plants and animals; and is considered a "mega-diverse" country with some 10 percent of the world's species. But Australia has one of the highest rates of current and ongoing land clearing in the world, with grave and tragic impacts upon habitat, climate and sustainability. Land clearing involves the removal of native woodlands, grasslands and draining of natural wetlands for urban development, cropping and grazing expansion, tourism development, and horticulture. Only 200 years after European invasion, Australia has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world. Like the other World economic powers, Australia likes to make international proclamations condemning environmental non-sustainability of regional neighbors and others. Given that in 1999 Australia lost some half a million hectares of its native vegetation, the most of any over-developed country, our mates in Australian government are in no position to preach to others. Given the relatively small arable land-base and rising soil salinity, Australian ecological sustainability is at stake--as well as the legitimacy of environmental conservation in the Pacific/Asia region. Below you will find a news article and an action alert from the Australian Conservation Foundation. Please email the Australian Prime Minister to express your concern.
g.b.
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
ITEM #1
Greens angered by approval to clear vast tracts of woodland
Sydney Morning Herald, Copyright 2000
August 3, 2000
By JAMES WOODFORD Environment Writer
More than 2,000 square kilometres of woodland in NSW has been approved for clearing since the enactment of the Native Vegetation Conservation Act in 1998, a secret State Government ministerial briefing paper has revealed.
This is an area 500 square kilometres greater than the Sydney metropolitan area.
The details in the document were obtained by conservationists while they were waiting for a meeting with one of the most senior bureaucrats in the Department of Land and Water Conservation. It is understood the paper was sitting on her desk and was read by the green group representatives.
The department is under intense pressure from both the Government's own vegetation advisory council and green groups to improve its efforts on the control of land clearing.
Since 1998, more than 360 alleged breaches of the legislation have been reported but there has not yet been a single successful prosecution.
This week, a leaked letter obtained by the Herald revealed that unless land clearing was reined in, NSW would breach agreements with the Commonwealth on both greenhouse gases and biodiversity.
Yesterday, a spokesman for the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Amery, confirmed the veracity of the report but condemned the actions of the conservationists.
The spokesman said the paper was an unsigned draft that was to be distributed to the director-general of the department and the minister.
According to the report, between January 1, 1998, and June 30, 2000, there were 203,354 hectares (2,033 square kilometres) approved for clearing. This year alone, between January and June, clearing of 43,282 hectares has been approved.
Based on the new figures, the NSW Government has underestimated its land-clearing approvals by about 20,000 hectares in both 1998 and 1999.
Even the new figures, however, mask the true rate of clearing, said the executive officer at the Nature Conservation Council, Ms Kathy Ridge. Ms Ridge was one of those who saw the draft document.
She said the true figure was probably closer to 4,000 square kilometres because the paper did not take into account clearing under exemptions in the act or unofficial clearing.
This would make clearing rates in NSW comparable to those in Queensland, she said.
"We want to see some satellite imagery made available to the public to show the true extent of clearing," Ms Ridge said.
A spokesman for the minister said vast areas had been protected by the Carr Government, including 57,975 hectares under the Native Vegetation Management fund and 400,000 hectares under Regional Forest Agreements.
He also said the figures did not take into account whether land was thinned, cleared or ultimately not cleared at all.
"It's unethical and unnecessary to obtain figures in that manner," he said. "There's absolutely no need for them to resort to any sort of dirty tricks to get figures."
Today an environmental impact statement will be released into a proposal to log timber from north-east NSW, which will be turned into charcoal at Gunnedah and then used as fuel for a silicon smelter at Lithgow.
ITEM #2
Landclearing in Australia, your help is needed!!
Australian Conservation Foundation,
http://www.acfonline.org.au/campaigns/landclearing/intro.htm
July 31, 2000
"In Queensland, clearing approvals for leasehold land increased by over 60% from 1998 levels, to 644,000 hectares in 1999. It is expected that actual clearing rates on leasehold and freehold land also increased significantly."
HELP STOP AUSTRALIA'S LANDCLEARING
Please read the following information regarding landclearing.
ACT NOW!!!!!
Write to:
* The Hon. John Howard MP, Prime Minister, Parliament House, Canberra ACT, 2600. You can email the PM from his web site feedback page at: http://www.pm.gov.au/your_feedback/feedback.htm
You can also fax the Prime Minister on 02 6273 4100.
Write to: Entsch, The Hon Warren, Member for Leichhardt at :
Warren.Entsch.MP@aph.gov.au
Cairns office, AAMI Building
140 Mulgrave Road, Cairns Qld 4870
(07) 4051 2220 (tel)
(07) 4031 1592 (fax)
Please use your own words, based on the information above and express your personal opinion and concerns on land clearing to John Howard and Warren Entsch.
Please send a copy of your letter or fax to us at ACF: Australian Conservation Foundation, 340 Gore Street, Fitzroy Vic, 3065. Fax: 03 9416 0767. or email c.sherwin@acfonline.org.au
For more information on the issue check out ACF's website on: http://www.acfonline.org.au/campaigns/landclearing/intro.htm
Help stop LAND CLEARING
Take Australia off the International blacklist
Background
Australia is famous for its Koalas, Kangaroos, other marsupials, plants and animals, many of which are found nowhere else on earth. It is one of only 12 countries to be recognised by scientists as "mega- diverse" and, in fact, nearly 10 percent of the world's animal, bird, plant and microbe species live in Australia. Most of these are found nowhere else on earth.
But Australia has one of the highest rates of land clearing in the world and the effects of this habitat destruction on Australian wildlife are catastrophic. In just 200 years since European settlement, Australia has reached the highest rate of mammal extinction in the world and almost half of our marsupial species are either extinct or threatened.
Recent data suggests that Australia cleared over half a million hectares of its native vegetation in 1999 (an estimated 529,200 hectares, 400,000 of which was in Queensland). On available figures, this rate is outpaced by only four other countries in the world: Brazil (2,554,400ha), Indonesia (1,084,400ha), Congo (740,200) and Bolivia (581,400ha).
Between one and two football fields of bush is being bulldozed every minute of each day.
It is not just species which are threatened with extinction - entire ecosystems of native plants and animals are being obliterated by land clearing. This places Australia in breach of the international Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). As a contracted party the CBD requires us to develop or maintain necessary legislation and/or other regulatory provisions for the protection of threatened species and populations, and to promote national arrangements for emergency responses to activities or events which present a grave and imminent danger to biodiversity.
Land clearing also has serious impacts on human communities.
Removal of bush is causing salty groundwater water to rise, causing salt scalds, rising salinity levels in rivers, reduced farm productivity, damage to roads, buildings and other infrastructure in towns and cities, and plummeting drinking water quality in many areas.
Land clearing is also estimated to contribute about 13% of Australia's greenhouse pollution, through the rotting and burning of millions of tonnes of vegetation.
This is in breach of article 2 of the Kyoto Protocol to the Convention on Climate Change which provides that parties shall promote sustainable forms of agriculture in light of climate change considerations (most clearing is for agriculture), and protection and enhancement of sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gasses.
Prime Minister John Howard will soon decide whether to provide funding support to help Queenslanders control land clearing.
What Can be Done to Stop Land Clearing in Australia
The Australian Government must accept its responsibility to protect farm productivity, wildlife and rural communities and fulfil its international treaty obligations.
You can help by writing to Prime Minister John Howard, expressing your concern about land clearing and associated land degradation, biodiversity decline and greenhouse emissions and urging him to take the following actions:
" Provide immediate financial support to assist with the introduction, implementation and monitoring of proper clearing control legislation in Queensland, prohibiting clearing of vegetation types classified as "of concern".
" Include land clearing as a matter of national environmental significance, triggering Federal Government action, in the new Environment Protection & Biodiversity Conservation Act;
" Ensure that binding, enforceable clearing control legislation is introduced across all jurisdictions and all land tenures in Australia.