A new report to be launched on the Sunshine Coast today shows koalas face an existential threat from urban sprawl and greenfield development in South East Queensland.

The Holding the Line report (PDF 6mb), commissioned by Queensland Conservation Council, shows the new update to the ShapingSEQ regional plan risks taking one of Australia’s fastest growing regions below the 'bare minimum' international benchmark of 30% bushland coverage. Almost 6% of bushland is at risk of being lost to urban sprawl and new developments over the planning time period.

Yesterday on National Trees Day, the Queensland Government released the latest Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS) report. The report shows 349,399 hectares of land was cleared during the reporting period of 2020-2021, cementing Queensland as the national leader in deforestation and continuing Australia’s unenviable international status as a hotspot for deforestation.

While welcoming the decrease in land clearing as shown in the 2020-2021 SLATS yesterday, the Wilderness Society and Queensland Conservation Council have recently acquired new footage, taken this year in Central Queensland, highlighting the devastating reality of broadscale land clearing. Land clearing and deforestation are still driving environmental destruction in Queensland.

UPDATE 28 February: 100,000 hectares of Queensland forest has been lost in unexplained land clearing and require further investigation, according to the latest government data. Read the release here.

A recent report highlights the extent of Queensland's deforestation problem, with recently decimated landscapes including more than 1 million hectares of forest cleared for beef from 2014-2019.

The report also found that:

• Land clearing in Queensland has increased, but was also underestimated in the past
• Deforestation for beef pastures destroyed habitats for 388 nationally threatened species and 14 threatened ecological communities over the five year study period.

In 2017, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk promised that “A re-elected Palaszczuk Government will once again drive down tree clearing rates by legislating to end broad-scale clearing of remnant vegetation.”

In 2018 some improvements to the Vegetation Management Act 1999 (VMA) were made but those changes did not go far enough, loopholes remain that allow broadscale clearing.

This latest report clearly details the impact of those loopholes and the effect they are having on Queensland’s iconic plant and animal species like the koala, squatter pigeon, ooline and shiny-leaved ironbark.

Queensland has already lost far too much of our iconic natural landscapes and wildlife habitat to land-clearing.

Will you email the premier to ask her to to protect our forests and put an end to mass deforestation once and for all?

To download the full report, click here. 

For media requests, contact Natalie Frost on 0411 074 846.

Email the Premier today and demand protection of our forests.

Released 8 November 2022

The Queensland Conservation Council welcomes the Australian Government signing the Forests and Climate Leaders Partnership at the Conference of Parties in Egypt yesterday. 

The question is whether this commitment will lead to action to address out of control deforestation in Queensland? 

Today’s delayed release of the 2021 State of the Environment report places Queensland in the frame as “the state most responsible” for climate change and habitat loss. These are the two great threats to Australia’s environment.

This report makes it clear that climate change is impacting Australia’s environment, and our people, with the situation classified as poor and deteriorating. Queensland must do more to reduce climate pollution. We have the highest per capita carbon emissions in the world, and we are responsible for 31% of Australia’s total emissions. Our energy and land use sectors are particularly high emitters, with electricity generation emitting 64.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, and Land use and forestry emitting 16.3 million tonnes.

“Queensland’s emissions make it the state most responsible for addressing climate change.” said Dave Copeman, Director of Queensland Conservation Council. We also have the most to lose, with increased water temperatures due to climate change and driving repeated mass bleachings events of the Great Barrier Reef.

"This report is a clear indication that the Queensland Government must lift its inadequate 30% by 2030 emissions reductions target. This target is woefully inadequate, not in line with climate science, and will lead to more damage to Queensland's environment as documented in the State of the Environment report.

Double the previous report, the Queensland Government has just revealed that 680 688 hectares of Queensland’s forest and woodland has been destroyed between July 2018 and June 2019 according to the latest Statewide Landcover and Tree Study (SLATS) data just released. This is over five times the size of Brisbane City Council area (134 270 hectares). 

“This data reveals that deforestation in Queensland is still out of control and is a serious risk to vulnerable wildlife and turbo-charging carbon release and climate change” said Dave Copeman, Director of the Queensland Conservation Council. 

“The huge area of destruction reported means we have probably been underestimating clearing throughout Queensland for years. This time they have used higher resolution imagery and analysis, it is far worse than we had been led to believe.” 

In 2015, the Palaszczuk government was elected to office on the commitment to reverse the Newman government’s weakening of Queensland’s tree clearing laws. Although amendments were passed in 2018 tightening protection, it left critical loopholes open, allowing the widespread destruction of Queensland's ecosystems.   

“The extent and pace of deforestation in Queensland is heartbreaking and we owe it to future generations to stop this climate-wrecking and habitat destroying trend,” Mr Copeman said.  

“The decisions we make today could mean either the survival or extinction of species like the koala or greater glider.” said Mr Copeman. 

“These trees will never have the chance to grow to become the habitats that our Koalas, our gliders, and the other 216 threatened animals so desperately need. 

This imagery puts to the sword the fear mongering on 2018 land clearing amendments to the Vegetation Management Act, when agricultural groups claimed it was a massive overreach by the Queensland Government. 

“We need to tighten the vegetation management act and close these loopholes for good.” said Copeman. “It’s disappointing that beef producer industry groups, such as Agforce, have been falsely claiming there is no deforestation in Queensland, even before this report was released. 

“They are stuck in the past, as the tree clearing practices they defend were abandoned by most of the industry years ago. The future of Queensland's beef industry is zero carbon, deforestation free beef, not the fights of the past.