- BY:KELMENY FRASER From: The Courier-Mail
NATURAL Resources Minister Andrew Cripps has rejected claims new vegetation clearing laws will damage the Great Barrier Reef and Moreton Bay.
Mr Cripps last night described the claims as “alarmist rhetoric” based on inaccurate information.
The comments were made during a debate on the wide-ranging Land, Water and Other Legislation Amendment Bill, which was passed in State Parliament on Thursday night
VERY CONCERNED: Maleny’s Bob Philpot, who owns Dilkusha on Obi Obi Creek, the second nature refuge gazetted in Queensland. Picture: Glenn Barnes Source: The Courier-Mail
While the “omnibus” bill proposed amendments to 18 separate pieces of legislation, the scrapping of riverine protection permits proved the most contentious.
Under the changes, protection permits will no longer be needed to destroy vegetation in a watercourse, lake or spring.
It sought to remove an “overlap” with other laws managing the clearing of vegetation.
But Opposition environment spokeswoman and South Brisbane MP Jackie Trad challenged whether an “overlap” existed, saying the changes threatened the health of the Great Barrier Reef and Moreton Bay.
“Sixty per cent of that will be in the Great Barrier Reef in terms of the Fitzroy River catchment system..” Ms Trad said.
But Mr Cripps said clearing vegetation in a watercourse would still be a controlled activity.
“The Newman Government has a point of view that landowners are appropriate and responsible stewards of their land and certainly that relates to watercourses on or adjacent to their land,” he said.
“I put it to honourable members that to rely on information provided by the WWF in debating the matter stretches the credibility of the member for South Brisbane’s contribution.”
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VEGETATION CLEARING FACTS
THE introduction of vegetation clearing laws was a major victory for the conservation movement two decades ago.
In 1999-2000 before the laws kicked in, 758,000ha was cleared annually which saw 95 per cent of the Brigalow Belt disappear and animals become extinct. This was reduced to 375,000ha in 2005-06 and 77,590ha in 2009-10.
Farmers seek to clear timber so as to optimise pasture growth for cattle and sheep or to lay over timber as drought feed and most are ideologically opposed to controls or policing of on-farm operations.