Exclusive: Data obtained by the Guardian suggests land clearing may be accelerating under Biodiversity Conservation Act

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Complaints about suspected illegal land clearing to a government hotline have increased sharply under the New South Wales government’s new Biodiversity Conservation Act, suggesting the rate of land clearing may be accelerating.

Data obtained by the Guardian under freedom of information laws after an eight month battle with the Department of Environment shows that reports of suspected illegal land clearing have increased by nearly 30% in the months since August last year when the new laws came into force.



Complaints to the department’s hotline have jumped from an average of 45.2 complaints a month under the old legislation (2016-17) to 59 complaints in August 2017, the month the new laws came into force.

Complaints have continued at an elevated level – 61 in October and 56 in November, though there were fewer than average in September.

Bar graph showing average number of complaints to the NSW Environment department's hotline about suspected illegal land clearing. Land clearing complaints to the NSW environment department hotline

Complaints to the hotline are only a pointer. They are not proof of increased clearing and could be affected by other factors such as increased publicity of the new laws. The land clearing reported may also not be illegal.

But the early data is likely to stoke fears that the new system, based on self-assessment by the land owner, is leading to a substantial increase in land clearing.

Under the Biodiversity Conservation Act, landowners can now clear some native vegetation without approval. Higher impact clearing still requires approval from a new Native Vegetation Panel but it is up to the land owner to decide, using satellite maps, whether an application is needed.

The new laws in NSW have been roundly criticised by environmental groups.

“While the land-clearing codes did not come into effect until August 2017, we started receiving anecdotal reports of increased clearing months before they were switched on, presumably because businesses were confident they would not be prosecuted,” the Nature Conservation Council’s chief executive, Kate Smolski said.

“The spike in habitat destruction indicated by the significant jump in reports to the land-clearing hotline is deeply troubling but not a surprise,” she said.



Queensland passes land-clearing laws after gruelling three-day debate Read more

“Environment minister Gabrielle Upton was warned by her department before she approved the codes that clearing would increase by up to 45% a year and 99% of identified koala habitat on private land would be exposed to bulldozing.”



The department said it investigates all reports of alleged unlawful land clearing on a risk basis, but does not comment on individual cases under investigation.

When similar legislation was introduced in Queensland in 2012, land clearing skyrocketed.

A report from the Climate Council calculated that one million hectares of bushland in Queensland – more than seven times the size of Brisbane – was cleared between 2012 and 2016.

About 395,000 hectares of native vegetation were cleared there in 2015-16 alone, 33% more compared with the previous year.

Queensland has now passed new laws that aim to stop broadscale clearing.

The full data about what is happening in NSW under its new laws is unlikely to be available for years. The most recent data on native vegetation and land clearing is for 2013-14.

Guardian Australia is currently seeking release of the three latest reports on native vegetation that used to be routinely released and has taken a case in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Queensland poised to pass tougher land-clearing laws as early as next week Read more

“The people have a right to know what is happening to the forests and bushland that are the last refuges for our koalas and other threatened species, but the Berejiklian government has denied us access to that information for years,” said Smolski.



“We are still waiting for the release of land-clearing data since July 2014. Imagine if the government ran the economy on data that was four years old – we’d be in the middle of a crisis and have no idea of the scale of the problem,” she said.

Despite the department using satellite imagery to prepare the reports, real time information on what is happening on land clearing in NSW is not available.



Based on past performance, the first report on what is happening under the Biodiversity Conservation Act is unlikely to see the light of day until late 2019 or 2020.



