New Government Protected areas commitment welcome, real test is in the funding

The Queensland Conservation Council welcomes today's announcement by the Queensland Government of the addition of 6,550 Hectares to Queensland’s national parks, and a further 2,150 hectares protected as of new nature refuges, in the lead-up to tomorrow's Destination45 Tourism Strategy.

Queensland Conservation Council Director, Dave Copeman said

We particularly welcome the statement by the Premier David Crisafulli that he wants to see more land added to the protected area estate in this 4 years than the previous 10 years of the previous Government.

We are calling for this ambition to be matched with funding in the upcoming Queensland Budget. The recent expansion including these announcements has been made possible by the $262.5m commitment to protected areas expansion by Minister Scanlon in 2022. These funds are almost all expended or committed, so the real test for the Crisafulli Government is whether they will add to this funding in the next budget.

Today’s announcement includes important areas for conservation, but 8,700 hectares is a tiny proportion of the 29m hectares protected that is the goal of the Government’s Protected Areas Strategy.

Polling shows that 77% of Queenslanders want more national parks, and 71% support a doubling of parks by 2030. Declaring these national parks is in line with public expectations.

A key challenge to protecting areas is the massive extent of mining and resource tenaments over Queensland. The Government should avoid rushing into expanding new gas fields or mining leases, so that these areas aren’t similarly blocked from being new protected areas before proper biodiversity assessments can be completed. The Resources Department should do more to support this objective for private protected areas, instead of their current obstructive role.

Finally, there are many promised parks that are still missing from today’s announcement, including many properties acquired or committed for conservation in the last 10 years. This includes the 55,000 hectares of state forest promised as part of the Greater Glider Forest Park last year, which is still not protected and under threat right now from logging that will destroy greater glider habitat.

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