Conservation groups call on Coalition to honour reef budget pledge by overturning Kingvale station decision • Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noon

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Turnbull government faces a test of its $500m budget commitment to protect the Great Barrier Reef, after federal environment officials ruled that a farmer could clear almost 2,000 hectares of Queensland forest.

A draft report from the Department of Environment recommends that the clearing at Kingvale station on Cape York, which was authorised under the former Newman state government 2014, should be permitted to go ahead with conditions.

This is despite the report finding that there were endangered species on the land to be cleared, and the government’s own consulting scientist warning that it would likely increase sediment runoff.

The land is in the Normanby catchment and the river system flows into Princess Charlotte Bay, an untouched tidal wetland that has large seagrass beds, an important part of the reef ecosystem.

Advice from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, referred to in the report, warned “increases in sedimentation and nutrients may result in loss of biodiversity by promoting algae growth and reducing the light availability for coral, seagrass, and benthic organisms, which may result in detrimental impacts to the marine ecosystem.”

The report by Dr Jeff Shellberg advised that the increase would come from a variety of cumulative sources on site: sheet erosion, rill and gully erosion, bank erosion, road and fence erosion, and possible sub-surface erosion (piping).



He also warned that nutrient and herbicide loads could also increase; and that fine sediment pollution from Kingvale station is likely to be a contributor to poor water quality in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area.

But another consultant said he thought the risks could be managed by ensuring the land clearing was restricted to areas with a gradient of less than 2%.

The draft recommendation imposes conditions including keeping a buffer of vegetation around waterways, maintaining 50% native vegetation ground cover, and building contours to manage water flows during the rainy season.



A period for comments ended last week, and the final decision now rests with environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg. Environmental groups say it is rare for ministers to overturn departmental decisions.



The land clearing had already been authorised by the former Newman government in Queensland, without an environmental impact statement, on the grounds that it would create high value agricultural land.



Since the referral, the Turnbull government has announced its $500m rescue package for the reef in this month’s budget, including $201m to deal with water quality.



Green groups, including the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society are now lobbying furiously to pursuade Frydenberg to back up the governments spending promises with a refusal of this land-clearing permit.

The Wilderness Society’s Queensland campaign manager, Gemma Plesman, said bulldozing the forest could accelerate runoff of sedimentation and nutrients into the Great Barrier Reef’s waters.



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“Allowing almost 2,000 hectares of native forest to be bulldozed in a catchment that drains into the Great Barrier Reef is incredibly risky. And even the proponents concede there is a range of endangered species on the land they want to clear,” Plesman said.

“Over the past four years Queensland has cleared 1m hectares of native vegetation because the former Newman government axed important environment protections. This bulldozing plan is a hangover from this disastrous period and must be rejected by the federal government, she said.



But the intervention of the Federal government has been contentious within the Coalition. The former agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce and the minister for resources and Northern Australia, Matt Canavan, both strongly opposed it, arguing that there was no proof the land clearing would damage the reef, and that it was a decision for the Queensland government.