Drone footage shows alleged illegal logging
Australia is a world leader in chopping down trees and wiping out animals: two questionable accomplishments that are tightly connected.
Land clearing and habitat loss are the biggest drivers of animal extinction and in recent years, Australia's aggressive rate of land clearing has ranked among the developed world's fastest.
So despite our reputation for untamed wilderness and charismatic wildlife, it's perhaps no surprise that Australia has one of the highest rates of animal extinction in the world.
We've driven 29 mammals to extinction since European colonisation and more than 1,700 others are threatened or endangered. The once abundant koala is rapidly vanishing from New South Wales and Queensland.
But how much land are we clearing? Getting a fix on this figure is tough. The only nationally consistent data comes from the Federal Government's National Greenhouse Accounts (NGA).
There are questions over the methodology used in that system — which we'll get to.
First, let's look at the numbers state-by-state so you can get a picture of how much land has been cleared, right across Australia, from 2010 until the most recently available data in 2018.
Here they are, from lowest to highest.
('Primary' refers to forests 30 years and older. 'Reclearing' refers to any forest younger than that.)
Australian Capital Territory
 |
| One tree equals 1,000 hectares or 1,000 rugby union fields. (ABC: Emma Machan) |
Imagine a strip of land 1-kilometre wide, and 15-kilometres long — that's equivalent to the 1500 hectares cleared in the ACT.
And it was all reclearing.
Why so low? ACT is tiny, and since 2011 its forestry industry figures are reported as part of New South Wales.
Northern Territory
 |
| One tree equals 1,000 hectares or 1,000 rugby union fields. (ABC: Emma Machan) |
The majority of the 31,800 hectares cleared in the NT was for agriculture.
However, that figure comes with some very big caveats because during that same period, more than 82,000 hectares were granted approval for clearing under pastoral land clearing applications in the NT.
Either some of those landholders still haven't cleared that land, or it hasn't been picked up by NGA survey methods.
Tasmania
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| Land clearing in Tasmania between 2010 and 2018, where one tree represents 1,000 hectares. (ABC: Emma Machan) |
While Tasmania's area of land clearing is more than double the Northern Territory's, the total land area of Tasmania is only one-twentieth the size.
Native forest logging has been a flashpoint in Tasmania for decades.
Youtube Tasmania's forest wars
But in 2012, a peace deal was struck between loggers and protestors.
From
a relative high point of 14,500 hectares cleared in a year back in
2008, only 5,300 hectares were cleared in 2018, according to NGA data.
But
the Liberal state government came to power in 2014 on a promise to
revive the Tasmanian forestry industry, and soon after their election, reclassified around 400,000 hectares of forest designated as "future reserve land" to "future potential production forest".
The
moratorium on logging of around 356,000 hectares of that forest lifted
in April of this year, and there are fears that the forestry wars of old
could kick off again.
 |
| Land clearing in South Australia between 2010 and 2018, where one tree represents 1,000 hectares.(ABC: Emma Machan) |
If we go back to our 1-kilometre-wide strip of land, South Australia's total clearing stretches almost 1,100km from Newcastle to Melbourne.
More than 90 per cent of that land was classified as reclearing, meaning it had been cleared at least once in the previous 30 years.
Victoria
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| Land clearing in Victoria between 2010 and 2018, where one tree represents 1,000 hectares. (ABC: Emma Machan) |
This time our 1-kilometre-wide piece of land would stretch from Hobart to the southern suburbs or Brisbane.
Like Tasmania, native forest logging in Victoria has been a hotly contested issue.
Logging is considered a threat to species such as the critically endangered Leadbeater's possum and vulnerable greater glider.
In 2019, Premier Dan Andrews committed to ending native forest logging in the state by 2030, and in the wake of last season's devastating bushfires there have been calls to bring that end forward.
But in April this year, the Victorian environment department updated and extended five regional forest agreements (RFAs) covering native forest logging in different parts of the state.
Timber harvesting operations done in accordance with RFAs "are not subject to certain Commonwealth legislative requirements", according to the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP).
"This streamlines regulatory processes for the timber industry," according to the Department.
But critics say RFAs allow logging operations to bypass Federal environment laws and often result in the habitat of threatened species being cleared without any environmental impact assessment.
In May of this year, a federal court ruled that VicForests had breached environmental laws by logging the habitat of threatened species.
VicForests are appealing that decision.
Western Australia
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| Land clearing in Western Australian between 1010 and 2018, where one tree represents 1,000 hectares. (ABC: Emma Machan) |
In total that roughly equals a 1-kilometre-wide piece of land 2,884 kilometres long or from Darwin to Adelaide with change.
The lion's share of land cleared in Western Australia was for agriculture, horticulture and forestry.
As well as land clearing, Western Australia's forests are under threat from climate change.
The southwest of Western Australia has been experiencing a long-term climate shift since the 1970s, which researchers have attributed to historical deforestation resulting in decreased rainfall.
Combined with hotter summer extremes this has resulted in the collapse of some species including around 16,000 hectares of northern jarrah forest.
New South Wales
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| Land clearing in New South Wales between 2010 and 2018, where one tree represents 1,000 hectares. (ABC: Emma Machan) |
Reclearing takes the state's entire land clearing tally to 663,000 hectares.
That makes our 1-kilometre wide strip of cleared land almost 7,000 kilometres long, roughly stretching from Perth to Cairns via Brisbane.
In 2017, New South Wales relaxed its native vegetation clearing laws, however the impact that has had on land clearing is expected to show up in the reporting periods for 2019 and 2020.
A leaked report from the Natural Resources Commission last year suggested that land clearing may have surged by as much as 13 times.
The main driver of clearing in New South Wales is agriculture.
Queensland
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| Deforestation in Queensland between 2010 and 2018, where one tree represents 1,000 hectares. (ABC: Emma Machan) |
Our 1km wide strip of cleared land would stretch for a whopping 24,466 kilometres — roughly all the way around Australia twice (minus Tassie).
Of that cleared land, 370,900 hectares were forests over 30 years old.
The
vast majority of clearing in Queensland is for agriculture — over 90
per cent of cleared forest was replaced by pasture in the years
2016-2019.
In contrast to New South Wales, Queensland's land clearing laws were tightened in 2018 and it's expected that clearing figures will drop significantly in the coming reporting periods.
But the data shows we've had a net increase in tree cover
Despite the clearing of more than 3.5 million hectares nationally during the 2010-2018 period, according to the National Greenhouse Accounts (NGA) data there has been a net increase in tree cover in Australia during that time.
To get to that conclusion, they have compared the amount of cleared land (3.78 million hectares) with the amount of land allowed to regrow (4.19 million hectares), to come up with a "net forest clearing" figure of negative-401,000 hectares.
Again, the lion's share of that regrowth — 2.7 million hectares —has reportedly happened in Queensland, and to a lesser extent in New South Wales.
But critics say this does not represent what is happening in our forests from a wildlife conservation or carbon storage perspective.
The issue is that a mature forest can be cleared in one place, and an equivalent area of three-foot-high saplings may have regrown in another.
In that case the data would show no net loss in forest cover, despite a significant deficit of carbon storage and habitat occurring.
The analysis is done via satellite imagery and cannot pick up subtle differences happening at ground level, according to WWF forestry expert Martin Taylor.
"The LULUCF activity tables are very primitive," Dr Taylor said.
"If a pixel goes from 'forest' to 'non-forest' that's counted as deforestation. Could be a year old or 300."
The NGA data also fails to pick up forest thinning, according to Dr Taylor.
The NGA method is based on satellite imagery where 20 per cent canopy cover or greater is classified as forest. Only when an area drops below that 20 per cent threshold is it registered as forest loss.
According to Dr Taylor that means a dense forest can be thinned from 95 per cent canopy to 21 per cent canopy, for instance, without registering as having been cleared under the NGA method.
There is no official data on how widespread this may be, however Dr Taylor said he had found numerous instances by trawling through satellite imagery — several of which he showed to the ABC.
 |
| Tree thinning shown between the image in 2015 (left) and 2016 (right) wasn't picked up in the NGA data. (Supplied) |
Discrepancies in data
Other questions have also been raised about the NGA land clearing data.
Unlike other states and territories, Queensland also has its own statewide annual land clearing monitoring program based on a method called Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATs).
When comparing the data for land clearing in Queensland from the SLATs method and the NGA method, there are vast discrepancies between the two — discrepancies which cast further doubt on the idea that Australia's tree budget is "in the black".
For instance, using the SLATs method the Queensland state government reported 356,000 and 392,000 hectares were cleared in Queensland in the periods 2016-17 (winter-to-winter) and 2017-18 respectively.
But the National Greenhouse Accounts (NGA) figures for Queensland show only 304,000 and 254,400 hectares were cleared for the 2017 and 2018 periods — almost 190,000 hectares less.
In a statement to the ABC, a spokesperson for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources said that is was "misleading to make simple comparisons" between the different reporting methods, and that the Department was confident its records are "complete and accurate".
"There is no underestimate of areas or emissions reported in the National Greenhouse Accounts," the spokesperson said.
"Only the Australian Government's reporting is undertaken in accordance with international standards established by the UNFCCC."But Dr Taylor from the WWF disputes that.
"It's ridiculous to say there is more forest [now than 10 years ago]," he said.
Calls for a standardised national monitoring system
According to Dr Taylor, the SLATs method gives a more accurate measure of tree loss and the WWF are calling for a standardised national system for monitoring forest cover in Australia.
Neither Queensland's Department of Environment and Science (DES) nor the Federal Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources responded directly to questions from the ABC about the differences in their methodologies, but both said they were confident in their systems.
A DES spokesperson told the ABC that "SLATs applies a highly rigorous methodology".
"Queensland's SLATs data undergoes extensive manual editing and verification to ensure a high level of confidence in the data for Queensland's monitoring and reporting requirements."
Meanwhile, Australia continues to be compared with some of the worst offending countries in the world when it comes to land clearing.
The data for the 2018-19 reporting periods, particularly from Queensland and New South Wales, will determine whether that has changed.
Links
- Why We Believe Planting 1 Trillion Trees Can Save The Planet
- Are Young Trees Or Old Forests More Important For Slowing Climate Change?
- 15 Astounding Facts About Trees
- 20 Things You Didn't Know About ... Trees
- (AU) We Must Fight Climate Change Like It’s World War III – Here Are 4 Potent Weapons To Deploy
- (AU) Ancient Australian Trees Face Uncertain Future Under Climate Change, Study Finds
- Examining The Viability Of Planting Trees To Help Mitigate Climate Change
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