Land Clearing !

The New South Wales government conducted a secret report on land clearing which was branded " cabinet in confidence " until legal action forced it to be tabled in parliament.  This audit revealed a " catastrophic failure " of land management that added to the threats facing wildlife.

The report revealed that 37,000 hectares were approved to be cleared in the 2018-9 years, or almost thirteen times the average rate of approval to clear 2700 hectares in the decade prior to a law change in 2016-7.  Much of this clearing has involved  approvals for " thinning " to allow pasture expansion. Under this rule, such clearing has amounted to a " state wide risk to biodiversity", and the policy intent of the reforms have not been achieved.

We are fast reintroducing the native animals that existed here before 1788 and it is essential that breeding colonies can intermix to strengthen  biodiversity.  Cleared land is an obstacle to free movement needed to strengthen bloodlines.

We have just had a combination of intense bushfires and the worst drought in recorded memory that scorched  about 5.5 million hectares across the state, burned a vast number of homes and killed a number of citizens. There is the expectation that those rebuilding will want to clear a safety perimeter around their homes and the bushfire brigades that heroically fought the summer fires need to establish fire breaks if the expected future fires can be kept under control.

Science is telling us that eating meat derived from animals is an inefficient way of feeding the ever growing world population.  We are already seeing meat substitute derived from vegetables appearing as an option and it seems inevitable that meat as we know it will become an item that is fast moving out of reach of the average family.  Economists predict that because of cost meat will steadily retreat from the average family menu.

We are urged to plant more trees as a way of slowing global warming.  Trees are natures way of absorbing carbon dioxide and replacing it with oxygen.  Unfortunately, food production is replacing the great rain forests of South America and Asia with farming land and every year what some call the " lungs of the planet " grow ever smaller.

This presents our parliaments with a vexing problem.  Most farms are a mix of cleared and uncleared land and farmers are anxious to bring more of their holdings under production.  The demand to clear trees to create pasture is an economic concern that the decision makers fear to resist.   At the moment the balance favors land clearing.

With the horror of this last summer fire season fresh in people's minds any plan to create more fire breaks will be publicly supported.  It is hard to see this tree clearing reduced by law.