Landmark nature law deal to protect Queensland forests

The Queensland Conservation Council warmly welcomes a new deal struck by the Australian Government and Greens to improve the national nature law reforms before Parliament.

While significant details are yet to be finalised, including setting the national environmental standards, this deal is a leap in the right direction, according to Queensland’s peak environmental body.

The Government has committed to closing the loopholes that have permitted broadscale land clearing and native forest logging in threatened species habitat, and to ensuring fossil fuel projects cannot receive fast-tracked environmental assessments.

Queensland Conservation Council's Nature Campaigner Natalie Frost said

Today marks a lifeline for the 1,043 threatened species that call Queensland home.

This deal between the Australian Government and the Greens is an encouraging and long-awaited turning point on the path to restoring Australia’s rich biodiversity.

More than 300,000 hectares of forest and woodland has been cleared annually in Queensland in recent years, putting beloved threatened species, like koalas and greater gliders, at risk.

We’ve been campaigning for years and communities across the nation have been demanding the Albanese Government close the policy loopholes that allow for this rampant clearing of threatened species habitat, including in the Great Barrier Reef catchments. This is a major milestone on that journey.

Queensland is a global deforestation hotspot with more proposed coal mines than any other jurisdiction in the world. For too long we have witnessed record high deforestation rates that have gone unchecked under broken nature laws. So today is a welcome relief to see these laws finally updated to deliver what nature needs.

Queensland is home to one of the world's seven natural wonders, the Great Barrier Reef, and yet broken nature laws made us a global embarrassment when it comes to protecting the nature we all love.

It’s a huge relief that the Albanese Government has held firm against corporate interests and not done a deal with the Coalition to water down environmental protections.

The Federal Coalition’s ditching of Net Zero has demonstrated that they can’t be trusted right now to protect our environment and communities from the devastating impacts of climate change.

However, we remain concerned that under these new laws the Minister may still have the power to approve projects deemed in the national interest even if they have significant environmental impact and the streamlined assessment process will not properly assess impacts to nature. This is against the spirit of the Samuels review and potentially undermines the progress of these reforms.

Now that the deal has landed, we’re calling on Environment Minister Murray Watt to introduce strong national environmental standards, regional plans that outlaw development in irreplaceable habitat, and ensure there’s another policy mechanism to reject new projects that will produce unacceptable climate pollution.

This deal is just the first step. What the Albanese Government does next will be the proof in the pudding when it comes to their commitment to protecting our unique nature and wildlife from further decline and extinction.

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