About 2,000 hectares of proposed habitat offsets for the endangered black-throated finch were removed from Adani’s conservation plans last year, mostly on land earmarked for the nearby China Stone coalmine.

The Indian mining company also intends to allow cattle to graze on the remaining conservation areas surrounding its Carmichael mine.

Leading ecologists have said Adani’s latest version of the black-throated finch species management plan – which still requires Queensland government approval – amounts to “a plan to manage a cow paddock”.

An analysis of previous versions of Adani’s plan, conducted by the Environmental Defenders Office Queensland, shows a proposed offset section of about 2,000 hectares was carved out in 2018.

The EDO says the removal of the conservation area, which contains high-quality finch habitat, points to difficulties Adani might have securing land tenure over the site of the open-cut China Stone mine.

Guardian Australia reported in December that most of the remaining 33,000 hectares of offsets is on land proposed for underground longwall mines as part of the Clive Palmer-backed Alpha North project.

“Adani has stripped away thousands of hectares of high-quality habitat they had previously planned to set aside for the black-throated finch and effectively surrendered it to a fellow mining company,” said Jo-Anne Bragg, the chief executive and a solicitor at the EDO.



“The carve-out of the [China Stone] area appears to demonstrate the difficulty that Adani is experiencing in legally securing their proposed offset areas.”



Adani said in a statement there had been no reduction to conservation areas since 2016, when the federal government approved an offset strategy. It’s unclear why the company notionally added the additional area of high-quality habitat to 2017 and 2018 versions of the finch management plan, then removed it.

“The conservation area approved under the strategy is more than 33,000 hectares in size, excludes the proposed [China Stone] lease, and is one of the largest privately managed conservation areas in Queensland,” Adani said.



“While the proposed [China Stone] mining lease overlaps part of the [Adani-owned] Moray Downs property, it does not sit on our conservation area.”

April Reside, an ecologist and member of the black-throated finch recovery team, told Guardian Australia that Adani’s management plan for the finch “reads like a management plan for cows”.

Adani’s own studies, conducted by consultants GHD in in 2014, acknowledged the best finch habitat was where there had been “an absence of grazing”. Reside said the finch had been driven to the verge of extinction and that it survived in areas that had been only lightly grazed.

“This plan specifically is really problematic because it reads like a management plan for cows,” Reside says.



“That just blows me away … we’re trusting this plan to stop this species going extinct.”

Adani directed Guardian Australia to a section of its management plan, which says that “strategically managed grazing” can increase the amount of bare ground on which finches forage. The plan also says grazing regimes can help protect the finch by reducing fuel loads and preventing habitat destruction by bushfires.

The controversial Carmichael project cannot proceed until two critical environmental management plans are accepted by the Queensland government.

As bureaucrats and experts scrutinise Adani’s proposals – relating to groundwater and the black-throated finch – the company has criticised the state government for dragging its feet. Last month Adani unveiled a billboard in central Brisbane and made statements critical of the Queensland government for delaying those approvals.

The latest salvo, in News Corp’s Courier-Mail on Monday, implied criticism of the Palaszczuk government for seeking the advice of threatened species experts.

The story named several members of the Threatened Species Recovery Hub and described them as “biased”, “radical” and “anti-coal”.

The hub said in a statement yesterday it had lodged a complaint with the Press Council and that the story was “totally incorrect”.

“I’m dismayed at this attempt to tarnish the hub and its researchers,” director Brendan Wintle said.

Wintle, who is based at the University of Melbourne, said he had been engaged by the Queensland government to lead a panel review “due to my expertise in the area of threatened species conservation planning”.

“The Threatened Species Recovery Hub is not involved in the Adani review. The five other scientists named by the Courier-Mail ... are not involved in the review.”

The Courier-Mail story described the review as an “extraordinary departure from normal process”.

Similar plans are regularly peer reviewed by consultants or panels of subject matter experts.

“It is completely appropriate and indeed commonplace for governments to consult experts on the environmental impacts of major projects,” Bragg said.

“The Queensland government’s decision to refer Adani’s black-throated finch species management plan to an independent, expert panel is not at all unique and is largely in line with previous similar assessment processes.”