This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

New South Wales gave permission to clear over 7,000 hectares of native vegetation in 2015-16, the second highest rate of clearing in a decade, while the creation of new conservation areas and restoration of bushland has slumped under the Berejiklian government.

In 2013-14, 900 hectares was cleared in total. In 2014-15 this jumped to 2,730 hectares and by 2015-16 it had increased to 7,390 hectares.

At the same time measures to conserve native vegetation, such as new conservation measures and restoration, slumped to the lowest level in a decade. Restoration of native vegetation areas fell to 116,170 hectares in 2015-16, less than half the decade average.

Weed removal programs also went into reverse, with just a tiny fraction of the areas being managed for weeds – 29,970 hectares compared to the decade average of 182,200 hectares.

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The 2014-16 Native Vegetation report card was released following an eight-month battle by Guardian Australia in the NSW Civil and Administrative tribunal to have it released.

The most recent report from 2016-17 has still not been released, with the department claiming it is still not complete.

Because the data had not been released for three years, Guardian Australia attempted to use freedom of information laws to make it public.

The data is particularly important because during that time, the Berejiklian government replaced the Native Vegetation Act, with a much more liberal regime –the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2017 – which allows farms and landholders to self-assess whether they need to make a formal application to clear land using satellite maps.

Environmental groups and the government’s own Office of Environment and Heritage have warned that the new regime will lead to a major increase in loss of habitat, on a scale only seen in Queensland, which is the nation’s worst state for land clearing.

A document obtained by the Nature Conservation Council (NCC) under freedom of information revealed the new land-clearing laws would cause extensive harm to wildlife habitat but pressed ahead with the changes anyway.

“This is damning evidence that the environment minister approved these new laws knowing they would expose 99% of identified koala habitat on private land to clearing,” NCC boss, Kate Smolski, said at the time. The department also warned of a 45% spike in land clearing.

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The woody vegetation report card which measures the tree cover over NSW showed fire and rural and other infrastructure development were the main causes of a major drop.

It revealed NSW lost 106,100 hectares (0.13% of the area of the state) in 2013–14 and 40,000 hectares (0.05% of the area of the state) in 2014–15.

The data lags the other data by one year. The data shows clearing for crops, pasture and thinning increased slightly, by 1%, in 2013–14 compared to 2012–1 and 5% from 2013–14 to 2014–15.

The rate of clearing due to rural and major infrastructure increased by 23% from 2012–13 to 2013–14 and there was was a further 4% increase in the clearing rate from 2013–14 to 2014–15.

The loss from fire was an order of magnitude higher than the rates for other years. Several large fires occurred across the Blue Mountains and the NSW Central Coast in October 2013. In 2014–15 there was a significant decrease in the rate of mapped fire scars from 71,900 hectares per year to 6,700 hectares per year.

The new Biodiversity Conservation Act came into force in August 2017. Figures on its impact may not be available for at least two years, judging by the department’s slow release of data under the old Act.