By Juliet Fox
Sixty-five per cent of Victoria's native vegetation has been cleared, and in 1990, the rate of destruction nationwide was over two rugby fields per minute. These are just a couple of the statistics given in two reports released in June by the CSIRO and the Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories (DEST).
The CSIRO's report, "Land Disturbance Over the Australian Continent", used satellite data to determine the extent, type and severity of "disturbance" to vegetation.
The study divided Australia into two land-use zones — extensive (mainly central and western Australia), and intensive (mainly southern and eastern Australia). It found that by 1990 over one million square kilometres of forests and woodlands had been cleared or thinned, representing over half of the intensive land-use zone and 20% of the entire continent. Although Queensland has the largest area cleared, Victoria has the most cleared in relative terms.
At the launch of the report, Senator John Faulkner, federal
minister for the environment, said that Australia is in the "international land-clearing big league" and that now "there just isn't that much natural vegetation left".
"One estimate, derived from the national greenhouse gas inventory, highlights that over 5 million hectares of bush were cleared between 1983 and 1993. That inventory also estimates that in 1990 alone, some 650,000 hectares of native vegetation were cleared", said Faulkner.
These findings were shown in the DEST's biodiversity division report — "Native Vegetation Clearance, Habitat Loss and Biodiversity Decline".
"What is disconcerting about this report is that most of the vegetation which is being cleared in Australia appears to be original bush (and not regrowth as some people think)." Faulkner said that this destruction is continuing, and the report shows that in the last 50 years as much land was cleared as in the previous 150.
In response to the reports, Wilderness Society
spokesperson Faruk Avdi said that they "confirm what conservationists have been telling the state and federal governments for years. They dramatically underline the need to shut down the native forest woodchipping industry without delay".
The industry exports over 5 million tonnes, or 2 million mature trees, as woodchips to Japan per year. "If anyone believed native forest logging to be ecologically sustainable, these reports from DEST and CSIRO show that it is not", said Avdi.
The CSIRO report also looks at the "general ecological implications" of destroying such huge tracts of forest and woodland. Apart from the obvious loss of unique native wilderness, there are devastating effects on native wildlife, biodiversity of both flora and fauna, greenhouse effect and water catchments.
A principal finding of the CSIRO report states, "Research indicates that over a period of four decades annual rainfalls in south-western Australia declined in areas which had been extensively cleared".
In his speech at the report's launch, Faulkner used the Murray-Darling basin as an example of salinity caused by extensive vegetation destruction. In the Murray-Darling basin alone, 12-15 billion trees have been cleared.
Similarly, where vegetation "disturbance" was high, "so also was the density of feral animals" — mainly rabbit, cat, fox and pig — which play a significant role in native vegetation and wildlife devastation. Neither of the reports believes that eradication or control of these animals is manageable, although concerted efforts are being made.
Nor do the reports indicate a change in the rate or extent of vegetation and habitat clearing. On the contrary: "Vulnerability to future disturbance is high for all landcover types".
The DEST report calls for "the broad scale integration of conservation and landuse ... using a combination of protected areas and effective reserve strategies to ensure the conservation of biodiversity". The CSIRO report sees the need for "off-peak" conservation strategies to integrate the conservation of biodiversity with other present and future land uses.
The reports paint a picture of unprecedented devastation of Australia's wilderness. The destruction is widespread and often irreversible; it continues while export woodchipping and land clearing continue. The reports provide detailed evidence that is powerful ammunition for the environmental movement.