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Nature Conservation Council NSW
Urgent interim action needed as NSW clears 570 football fields of habitat each day
MEDIA RELEASE
13 September 2024
The Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales (NCC), the state’s leading environmental advocacy organisation, has called on the NSW Government to act on its commitment to stop the runaway land clearing that is continuing to decimate NSW bush.
NSW remains in the midst of an extinction crisis which will continue to gather pace until the root cause – widespread and unregulated destruction of our habitat encouraged by the former government – is addressed.
The latest vegetation clearing data shows that clearing continues to devastate large swathes of habitat every year. In NSW, an equivalent of 300 times the Sydney CBD is cleared annually, or 570 football fields per day.
The annual Statewide Land and Tree Study (SLATS) data released today shows, yet again, a shocking amount of habitat was cleared across the state, taking the average to 84,000 hectares of native vegetation (defined as trees, shrubs or woody vines, or understory and groundcover plants that have been relatively undisturbed since 1990[1]) being cleared every year for the past five years.
Habitat clearing is, alongside climate change, the most significant threat to species in NSW[2], the worst ranked state in the country for protecting and restoring trees.
Statements attributable to NCC Chief Executive Officer, Jacqui Mumford:
“These new figures still show the urgent need for reform. Every day of inaction means more species are at an ever-growing risk of going extinct.”
“Our nature laws in NSW are broken and unable to protect habitat.”
“The government has asked the Natural Resources Commission to come up with new options to stop runaway habitat clearing and protect critical species. We are heartened by this process but concerned about the slow timeframe – interim action to protect critical habitat must be taken given the numbers we are seeing today.”[3]
“Protecting critically endangered ecosystems is urgent and needs to happen yesterday.”
“The existing Native Vegetation Code is an inappropriate regulatory tool for managing impacts on biodiversity in rural areas. It permits a completely unsustainable amount of clearing without any robust environmental assessment or approval requirements. The new data shows that we don’t know the circumstances under which nearly half of the non-woody vegetation clearing happened in 2022. It may be illegal clearing – we just don’t know.”[4]
“Clearly the scope of ‘allowable’ vegetation clearing activities is too broad and open to misuse.”
“We need urgent interim action to immediately protect critically endangered ecosystems. These precious places and the critters than rely on them cannot wait while the scale of reform we require is nowhere to be seen.”
Statement ends
References
[1] As defined in the NSW Vegetation Clearing Report 2021 https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/native-vegetation/landcover-science/2021-nsw-vegetation-clearing-report
[2] https://www.soe.epa.nsw.gov.au/all-themes/land/native-vegetation#vegcover
[3] See the Government’s NSW Plan for Nature in response to the review of the BC Act and native vegetation provisions of the local land services act here.
[4] In 2022, 46.6% of the total of non woody vegetation clearing is unallocated, and 11.8% of woody clearing is unallocated. Unallocated clearing is vegetation clearing for which the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water has not been able to identify a formal authorisation or is unable to presume authorised or allowable using visual cues in the imagery. See here
Further information can be found at
2022 NSW vegetation clearing data
This spreadsheet reports on figures of detected woody and non woody (grasses, small shrubs and groundcover) vegetation clearing that has occurred from 2018 to 2022, statewide and on Category 2 regulated land.
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