AUGUST 2019

Drivers ofDeforestationand landclearing inQueensland

First published August 2019
For policy and media questions, please contact Jessica Panegyres,
National Nature Campaigner, at jessica.panegyres@wilderness.org.au
For GIS or technical questions regarding this analysis, please contact Rachel Fletcher,
Environmental GIS Analyst, at rachel.fletcher@wilderness.org.au
Inside cover Images: Olive Vale clearing, Qld
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Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

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Executive summary
Deforestation in Australia has now
reached globally significant levels,
driven largely by land clearing in thestate of Queensland. In the last five
years, over 1.6 million hectares offorest and bushland has been clearedin Queensland alone, according toQueensland Government data.1 Australia
is now on a global list of deforestation“fronts”, alongside the Amazon, theCongo and Borneo.2 In Australia,
deforestation (also known as tree
clearing or land clearing) is a leading
driver of biodiversity loss,3 a significant
source of greenhouse gas emissions,4and contributes to poor water quality
running into the Great Barrier Reef.5

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Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

The Queensland Government’s official reports
consistently attribute over 90% of the state’s
forest and bushland destruction to replacementby ‘pasture’.6 For example, approximately 91% and
93% of the clearing mapped in 2016–17 and 2017–18,
respectively, was assigned to the replacement land
cover class of ‘pasture’.7 However, the Wilderness
Society has undertaken fine-scaled GIS analysis todetermine, for the first time, the specific sectors
contributing to deforestation in Queensland. Our
analysis is focused on Queensland for two key
reasons. First, Queensland has the highest rates ofdeforestation and land clearing in the country, withmore forest and bushland clearing than the rest of
the country combined.8 Second, Queensland has thenation’s most accurate and publicly available dataset
for measuring tree-cover change, the Statewide
Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS).

Our analysis found that 73% of all deforestationand land clearing in Queensland is linked to beef
production, a figure which is likely to be a significant
underestimate.9 The next largest land uses linked
to deforestation and land clearing in order weresheep, crops, multiple mixed use, mining and otherextractives, and rural housing. In the Great Barrier
Reef catchments, over 93% of all deforestation andland clearing is attributed to beef as the primary landuse, followed by relatively low levels of clearing for
cropping, extractives, rural housing and fodder.

A key implication of these findings is that thesectors identified as key drivers of Queensland’s
deforestation and land clearing rates are currently
exposed to deforestation risk. Deforestationrisk—meaning the financial, reputation and branddamage that could flow from a company’s activities
being linked to deforestation—is increasingly being
addressed at the global level by private sector andgovernmental deforestation-free sourcing policies.
Our analysis suggests that the beef supply chain
currently has the greatest exposure to deforestation
risk in Queensland and that further action is urgently
required to address this risk.

3Summary Report
Deforestation in Australia
Deforestation—the reduction or complete removal ofnative forest and bushland—has escalated in Australia
over recent years to reach globally significant
levels.10 Eastern Australia is now a designated global
deforestation hotspot, alongside places including the
Amazon, the Congo and Borneo.11 On current rates,
a football field-sized area of forest and bushland isbeing bulldozed in Australia every two minutes.12 This
is in a context where 50% of Australia’s forest has now
been completely cleared or severely modified since
European colonisation.13

One recent study estimates that 50 million native
animals, including the iconic koala, are being killed
by land clearing in Queensland and NSW alone
each year.14 Carbon pollution from deforestation(excluding logging of native forests) is now equal toa third of all coal-fired power stations in Australia,
or approximately 10% of Australia’s overall domestic
emissions.15 In a survey of leading scientists
conducted by the Ecological Society of Australia,
clearing and land use change was ranked as thehighest current threat to biodiversity in Australia.16
A 2019 Scientists Declaration, signed by over 300
scientists, stated also that ‘Large-scale clearing ofwoody native vegetation contributes to increased fire risk by
exacerbating climate change through carbon emissions andincreasing the severity and duration of droughts throughchanges in local and regional climates.’17

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Deforestation and land clearing in Great Barrier Reef
catchments also leads to erosion and run-off ofsediment into the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage
Area.18 This run-off reduces sunlight to seagrasses
and smothers coral and other reef organisms.
Agricultural activity often intensifies after land iscleared, driving additional chemical run-off into
Reef waters on top of the existing chemical loads.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has
explained that ‘The decline in coral cover and lack ofrecovery coincides with degraded water quality as a resultof land clearing, land use changes and agricultural use of
the catchment.’19 For this reason, the Australian andQueensland governments committed to a number ofactions under the Reef 2050 Plan relevant to controllingdeforestation and tree clearing in Reef catchments. 20
The Reef 2050 Plan was submitted to the UNESCOWorld Heritage Committee as part of Australia’s bid
to avoid having the Reef placed on the ‘In Danger’ listin 2015. One key action included was to ‘Strengthen
the Queensland Government’s vegetation management
legislation to protect remnant and high value regrowth
native vegetation, including in riparian zones.’21

Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

7

Summary findings
We quantified the contribution of various sectors to
deforestation and land clearing using Queensland’svegetation change dataset, SLATS and the Queensland
Valuation System (QVAS) data for land use. The
analysis found that 73% of all detected deforestationand land clearing between 2013 and 2018 was
attributed to beef production as the primary (65%)
or secondary (7%) land use. In total, over 1 million
hectares (1,174,634 hectares) of deforestation andland clearing over the last 5 years was linked to beef
production. Of this total, 333,339 hectares was old
growth or remnant vegetation. In Great Barrier Reef
catchments, the proportion of forest and bushland
clearing attributed to beef production as the primaryland use was 94%. These figures are likely to besignificant underestimates due to a number ofconservative assumptions built into the analysis (seemethods section for details). 22

Great Barrier Reef catchments

Table 1 Clearing linked to beef production in Queensland 2013-2018
Beef land use types

Remnant (ha)Non-remnant (ha)Total (ha)Proportion ofclearing in Qld (%)

Primary beef cattle

295,005

740,460

1,035,465

64.6

Secondary beef
cattle27,83980,670108,508

6.8

Multiple tenurescontaining beef
cattle10,495

20,16530,661

1.9

Total

333,339

841,295

1,174,634

73.3

The Queensland total (1,603,557ha) excludes parcels with no available land use data and excludes SLATS replacement land cover classes of “Timber
plantation”, “Natural tree death” and “Natural disaster damage”. SLATS replacement land cover classes of “Mining” and “Settlement” occurring on
cattle land uses were removed and added to “extractive” and “Rural housing” land use categories respectively

While beef production emerged as the overall number
one driver of total deforestation and land clearing
in Queensland on the primary land use listed (65%),
this was followed by sheep (28%), cropping (2.2%)and extractives (1.3%). This was followed by small
proportions of clearing for rural housing, otherlivestock, fodder, urban and recreational, industrial,
defence force establishment, then reservoir, dams
and bores.

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In the Great Barrier Reef catchments, the analysis
found that over 93% (or 575,291 hectares) of all
deforestation and land clearing was attributed toproperties where beef cattle was the primary landuse. This is followed in order by cropping (2.03%),mining and other extractives (1.43%), rural housing(1.29%) and fodder (0.2%).

Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

Clearing linked to beef in Queensland

7

Table 2 Clearing in Great Barrier Reef catchments by primary land use 2013 - 2018
Primary land use group

Remnant (ha)Non-remnant(ha)Total (ha) Proportion of clearing in
GBR catchments (%)

Beef Cattle

119,120456,171575,291

93.5667

Cropping

2,392

10,12012,5122.0350Extractives

3,264

5,498

8,762

1.4251

Rural housing

3,483

4,430

7,913

1.2870Multiple tenure (multiple primaryland use)

1,390

4,374

5,764

0.9375

Fodder

184

1,059

1,243

0.2022Other govt use

556

616

1,172

0.1906

Industrial

341

504

845

0.1375

Urban and recreational

362

399

761

0.1238Other livestock

70

488

558

0.0907

Sheep

0

25

25

0.0040Grand Total

131,161

483,684

614,845

100

Excludes parcels with no available land use data. Excludes SLATS replacement land cover classes of “Timber plantation”, “Natural tree
death” and “Natural disaster damage”. SLATS replacement land cover classes of “Mining” and “Settlement” occurring on sheep andcattle land uses were removed and added to “extractive” and “Rural housing” land use categories respectively. Totals may not equal thesum of the columns due to rounding of decimal places.
Clearing in Great Barrier Reef catchments by primary land use

Implications:Deforestation risk in
supply chains
This analysis suggests that deforestation risk exists
in a number of Queensland-linked commodity
supply chains, including beef and sheep production.
Deforestation risk refers to the financial, reputation
and brand damage that could flow from a company’s
activities being linked to deforestation. Publicconcern about deforestation, forest degradation(logging) and habitat destruction has sparked agrowing wave of initiatives from the private sector
to seek to eliminate deforestation and destructionof other native ecosystems from supply chains.
As of mid-2018, there were about 760 such public
commitments by 469 producers, processors, traders,manufacturers and retailers.23
The New York Declaration on Forests, launched atthe 2014 New York Climate Summit, has to datebeen signed by over 40 national-level governments
including the United States of America, the United
Kingdom and the European Union, and over 50
multinational corporations.24 Endorsers of the
Declaration have committed under Goal 2 to: ‘supportand help meet the private-sector goal of eliminating
deforestation from the production of agriculturalcommodities such as palm oil, soy, paper and beef
products by no later than 2020, recognizing that many
companies have even more ambitious targets.’25
The Accountability Framework Initiative (AFI), a groupof International Non Government Organisations
and technical organisations, has developed ageneral framework to help companies develop andimplement these non-deforestation policies. Theirdraft guidance for new deforestation-free policies

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Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queenslandstates that “a cut-off date no later than January 1 2020
would bring companies in line” with the global goals
specified in the New York Declaration on Forests andthe UN Sustainable Development Goals.26
Some corporations who have signed suchdeforestation statements are purchasers ofAustralian agricultural commodities. For example:.. McDonald’s has a policy of “... eliminating
deforestation from our global supply chains.”27
Their stated goal is to ‘eliminate deforestation in
our beef, chicken (including soy in feed), palm oil,coffee and the fiber used in customer packaging by
2020.’ Beef from Australia has been identified by
McDonald’s as a top priority in implementing its
Forests Commitment due to the high levels ofdeforestation present.28.. The China Meat Association recently signed
the Chinese Sustainable Meat Declarationthat commits to “... avoiding land degradation,
deforestation and conversion of natural vegetation in
the livestock production value feed chains”.29.. Many of the companies who endorsed the New
York Declaration on Forests are also part of theConsumer Goods Forum (CGF) that represents
400 companies across 70 countries and has
committed to “achieving zero-net deforestation
by 2020 through the sustainable sourcing of key
commodities like soy, palm oil, cattle and paper andpulp.”30 In Australia, Woolworths has been amember of the CGF.
It is likely that over time, the proliferation of
deforestation-free commitments will become a9market access risk issue for Australia’s agriculturalcommodities still linked to land clearing.
Australian industry bodies appear to have recognised
sustainability risk issues and taken steps towards
sector-wide solutions. For example:.. The Australian dairy industry has committed to agoal of zero net deforestation by 2020.31.. The Australian Beef Sustainability Framework,
which is an initiative of the Red Meat Advisory
Council (RMAC), has released a set of indicatorsthat measure what they refer to as ‘the balance oftree and grass cover’ in Australia.32
..

..

..

There are multiple voluntary initiatives thatencourage landholders to protect and restore
biodiversity at the producer level, such as
Landcare.33
In 2019, a pilot program for a certification
scheme for agricultural produce that meets key
biodiversity measures was announced by theAustralian Government.34
The producer industry peak body Agforce
Queensland was running a voluntary program,the Grazing Best Management Practices, ‘toallow the grazing industry to demonstrate soundenvironmental and ethical practices to consumers andthe community.’35

While these sorts of initiatives are positive first steps,
the size and scale of deforestation risk demonstrates
that there is more to be done to meet corporate
sustainability commitments.
The trend towards deforestation-free commitments
is premised on the recognition that the sustainabilityof commodity production is essential to its longterm viability. For example, the Global Roundtableon Sustainable Beef explains their Natural Resource
principles as being ‘based on the concept that ecosystemprocesses are managed through adoption of practices
designed to sustain and restore ecosystem healththroughout the beef production system.’36 In other words,
production and sustainability can co-exist, given theright management practices. It is important to notethat beef and other livestock can be, and are, grownon already cleared land and can also co-exist with
intact forests. A large proportion of Queensland is
grassland or savannah where beef can be productive
without removing forest and bushland. This suggests
a viable pathway for production and sustainability toco-exist for Queensland.

Conclusion
By using Government datasets to attribute forest andbushland clearing to land use, our analysis foundthat 73% of all deforestation and land clearing inQueensland is linked to beef, of which 65% lists beef
production as primary land use and an additional
7% lists beef as a secondary land use. The second
largest driver is sheep (28%), followed by cropping(2.2%) and mining and other extractives (1.3%). In the
Great Barrier Reef catchments, 94% of all forest andbushland clearing is attributed to beef as primaryland use, followed by cropping, extractives and rural
housing. While the data do not yet exist to conduct
such an analysis at the national level, these arenationally significant results given Queensland leads
the nation in deforestation and land clearing rates.

to address the problem, the size and scale ofdeforestation risk demonstrates that there ismore to be done to meet corporate sustainability
commitments. The Wilderness Society’s view isthat each sector with deforestation risk should
adopt a sector-wide commitment to deforestationfree practices by 2020. In addition, individualcompanies with deforestation risk in their supply
chains —producers, processors, retailers and fast
food restaurants—should follow the growing trend
in global corporate commitments and remove
deforestation and land clearing from their supply
chains. The removal of deforestation and land
clearing from supply chains would have strong local,
national and international benefits for the industry
and consumers, as well as for the environment.

An important implication of these findings is that
deforestation risk is present in several commodity
supply chains linked to land clearing in Queensland.
From this analysis, it is clear that beef has thelargest exposure to deforestation of the sectors
studied. Globally, new international agreements
and corporate commitments to deforestation-freecommodity supply chains will place increasing
demand on Australia’s soft commodity sectors totransition to sustainable practices.
Within Australia, while some industries with
deforestation risk are taking positive steps

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Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

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Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

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Detailed findings
and methods
Detailed findings
The data
The contribution of different sectors to deforestation
between 2013 and 2018 was quantified using
Queensland’s vegetation change detection dataset(Statewide Landcover and Trees Study—SLATS) andthe Queensland Valuation System (QVAS) data for
determining land use. The 2011 Remnant Extent wasused to determine the split between remnant andnon-remnant vegetation.

Analysis 1 Analysis of clearing by primary land use
The analysis showed that 65% of forest and otherland clearing can be attributed to the primary land

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use of beef cattle - breeding, grazing or fattening(of this, 28% of clearing is of mature ‘remnant’,
previously untouched forest and bushland). This isfollowed by sheep (28%), cropping (2.2%), mining
and other extractives (1.3%) and rural housing (1%).
The figure attributed to beef production is likely to
be a significant underestimate given the lag in dataof the transfer of primary use from sheep to cattle
in QVAS, which has occurred extensively in recent
years in places like the Mulga Lands in south-west
Queensland.

Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

Table 3 Clearing in Queensland by primary land use 2013 - 2018
Primary land use group

Remnant (ha)Non-remnant(ha)Total (ha)Proportion ofclearing in Qld (%)

Beef Cattle

295,005

740,460

1,035,465

64.573

Sheep

150,412304,276454,68828.355

Cropping

5,372

30,22435,596

2.22

Multiple tenure (multiple
primary land use)

12,022

20,86932,891

2.051

Extractives

11,292

9,038

20,330

1.268

Rural housing

6,691

8,999

15,6900.978

Other livestock

452

2,218

2,670

0.167

Fodder

382

1,919

2,301

0.143

Urban and recreational

691

815

1,506

0.094

Industrial

410

614

1,024

0.064

Other uses

700

696

1,397

0.087

Total

483,429

1,120,129

1,603,558

100

Excludes parcels with no available land use data. Excludes SLATS replacement land cover classes of “Timber plantation”, “Natural
tree death” and “Natural disaster damage”. SLATS replacement land cover classes of “Mining” and “Settlement” occurring on sheep
and cattle land uses were removed and added to “extractive” and “Rural housing” land use categories respectively. Totals may notequal the sum of the columns due to rounding of decimal places.
Total clearing in Queensland by primary land use

15

Analysis 2 Total clearing linked to beef production
The first analysis showed that beef production islinked to the majority of clearing. Given that beef
production was the dominant land use represented
in SLATS, the second stage in the analysis was tolook at any additional land that had beef listed
as a secondary land use. Parcels with more than
one tenure in the legal parcel boundary were also
investigated. It was possible to analyse the clearing
polygons in these parcels more closely to ascertain
whether they contained a beef cattle land use(breeding, grazing or fattening). By including these
additional beef land uses, forest and bushland
cleared linked to beef cattle increased to 1,174,634
hectares, or 73% of total clearing (refer to Table 1 on
pages 6-7 of this report). As described above, this is
likely to be a conservative figure given the time lag intransferring primary use data from sheep to cattle in
QVAS.

Analysis 3 Total clearing in the Great Barrier Reef
catchments by land use
In the Great Barrier Reef catchments, the analysis
found that 94% of all forest and bushland clearing
is attributed to beef cattle as a primary land use,
or 575,291 hectares. This is followed by cropping(2.03%), mining and other extractives (1.43%) andrural housing (1.29%). Refer to Table 2 on pages 8-9 fordetailed data.
It should be noted here that parcels smaller than
30 hectares and parcels with no land use data
made up 2.8% of total clearing in the Great Barrier
Reef catchments (17,838 hectares). This is a low
percentage; however, it would be ranked second next
to beef cattle if it was included in this analysis.

reporting of carbon emissions. It is sometimes known
as “Kyoto” forest because it is used for determining
Australia’s levels of technical forest cover anddeforestation under the Kyoto Protocol reporting.
‘Deforestation’ therefore can have a specifictechnical meaning when used by the AustralianGovernment. The formal definition of Kyoto forest
is: “Forests include all vegetation with a tree height ofat least 2 metres and crown canopy cover of 20 per centor more and lands with systems with a woody biomass
vegetation structure that currently fall below but which,in situ, could potentially reach the threshold values of thedefinition of forest.”37 ‘Land clearing’ usually refers to
all forest and bushland clearing. Forest, according
to the forest definition, is a smaller subset of overall
vegetation clearing in Queensland. It is important
to note that many valuable natural ecosystems are
not technically classed as a forest under the official
Australian definition. Often the vegetation cleared in
Queensland is referred to as “scrub”, implying it is
not valuable, and our analysis sought to understandhow much total clearing in Queensland would
formally be defined by the Australian Government as“forest” and therefore its removal as “deforestation.”
This fourth analysis looked at the amount oftechnical deforestation (clearing of technical “Kyoto”
forest) that was linked to beef production. The
analysis found that 73% or 971,922 hectares of "Kyoto"
forest clearing was linked to beef production. Of this,
241,316 hectares was remnant forest. In Great Barrier
Reef catchments, 95% or 494,456 hectares of "Kyoto"
forest clearing was linked to beef production.

Table 4 Technical "Kyoto" forest clearing in Queensland linked to beef 2013-2018
Vegetation

Primary land
use beef
cattle (ha)Secondaryland use beef
cattle (ha)Multipletenures that
contain beef
cattle uses
(ha)Total linked tobeef (ha)Proportion of
Qld total (%)

All Kyoto
forest clearing
in Qld (ha)Remnant

213,286

21,942

6,088

241,31668

353,704

Non-remnant 640,254

74,505

15,847

730,606

75

979,548

Total

96,447

21,935

971,92273

1,333,252

853,540

Excludes parcels with no available land use data. Excludes SLATS replacement land cover classes of “Timber plantation”, “Natural tree death” and“Natural disaster damage”. SLATS replacement land cover classes of “Mining” and “Settlement” occurring on cattle land uses were removed and added
to “extractive” and “Rural housing” land use categories respectively. Totals may not equal the sum of the columns due to rounding of decimal places.

Table 5 Technical "Kyoto" forest clearing in Great Barrier Reef Catchments linked to beef 2013-2018
Vegetation

Primary land
use beef
cattle (ha)Secondaryland use beef
cattle (ha)Multipletenures that
contain beef
cattle uses
(ha)Total linked tobeef (ha)Proportionof GBR
catchments
total (%)

All Kyoto
forest clearing
in GBR
catchments(ha)Remnant

88,809332

697

89,83990

99,495

Non-remnant

397,615

3,050

3,953

404,61896

423,061

Total

486,424

3,382

4,650

494,45695

522,556

Excludes parcels with no available land use data. Excludes SLATS replacement land cover classes of “Timber plantation”, “Natural tree death” and“Natural disaster damage”. SLATS replacement land cover classes of “Mining” and “Settlement” occurring on cattle land uses were removed and added
to “extractive” and “Rural housing” land use categories respectively. Totals may not equal the sum of the columns due to rounding of decimal places.

Analysis 4 Technical ‘forest’ clearing linked to beef
production
The Australian Government has a technical definitionof what constitutes a ‘forest’ (as opposed toother types of vegetation like bushland or sparsevegetation cover) which it uses for international

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Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

17

Methods
Data used

Basic analysis

Spatial data

The objective of this analysis was to determine which
land use was the leading cause of deforestation andland clearing in Queensland.

..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..

Queensland cadastral data weekly—whole of State (downloaded 14/10/2018) © State of Queensland(Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy) 2018
Statewide landcover and trees study 2013 to 2014 Queensland (12/11/2015) © State of Queensland
Statewide landcover and trees study 2014 to 2015 Queensland (05/08/2016) © State of Queensland
Statewide landcover and trees study 2015 to 2016 Queensland (05/10/2017) © State of Queensland
Statewide landcover and trees study 2016 to 2017 Queensland (10/12/2018) © State of Queensland
Statewide landcover and trees study 2017 to 2018 Queensland (10/12/2018) © State of Queensland
Remnant Extent 2011—Queensland (acquired 12/09/2018) © State of Queensland (Department ofEnvironment and Science) 2018
Biodiversity status of pre-clearing regional ecosystems—Queensland—version 10.1 (01/03/2018) © State ofQueensland (Department of Environment and Science) 2018 (accessed 13/06/2018)

Non-spatial related resources:
..
..

..

Regional Ecosystem Description Database (REDD) © Environment and Science, Queensland Government,
licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Accessed on 15/10/2018
Neldner, V.J., Wilson, B.A., Dillewaard, H.A., Ryan, T.S. and Butler, D.W. (2017) Methodology for Survey and
Mapping of Regional Ecosystems and Vegetation Communities in Queensland. Version 4.0. p. 124. Updated May
2017. Queensland Herbarium, Queensland Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation,
Brisbane.
Queensland Valuation System (QVAS), Office of the Valuer-General, State Valuation Service © Stateof Queensland (Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy) 2018. Sourced from Pricefinder
15/10/2018.

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Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

Stage 1 Identifying clearing in Queensland

Stage 2 Property related land use data

The Statewide landcover and trees study (SLATS)
Queensland datasets for the period 2013 to 2018
were used to detect deforestation and land clearing.
This analysis excludes repeat clearing. Where repeat
clearing occurs, the first epoch of detected clearing isused. Australia Albers Equal Area projection was used
to calculate area in hectares for the detected clearing
polygons. The analysis excludes SLATS replacement
categories of “Timber plantation”, “Natural disasterdamage” and “Natural tree death”, totalling 4%of the total detected clearing (or 76,229 hectares).
Beef-related and sheep-related clearing excludes
SLATS replacement categories of “Settlement” and“Mine”. The Remnant Extent 2011 dataset was used
to determine if the vegetation being cleared between
2013 and 2018 was remnant or non-remnant. Further
analysis was conducted to identify clearing of forest
as defined under the Kyoto Protocol in stage 3.

The Queensland Digital Cadastral Database (DCDB)
November 2018 was used as a base for land use
attribution on parcels > 30 hectares (102,227 parcels).
Data from QVAS (sourced from Pricefinder, Nov 2018)
was attributed to the DCDB data using the uniquelegal parcel number (lot number, plan type and plannumber), including primary and secondary land usesof the parcel. Primary and secondary land uses in the
QVAS data were categorised into land use groups asshown on the following page:

19

Table 6 Land use groups used in analysis
Primary and secondary land use in QVAS *Primary land use - Group name

Secondary land use - Group nameCATTLE BREEDING & FATTENING
CATTLE FATTENING
CATTLE GRAZING & BREEDING

Beef cattle

Beef cattle

MILK-NO QUOTAMILK-QUOTA
CREAM

Dairy

Dairy

ANIMALS-SPECIALHORSESPIGSGOATS
POULTRY

Other livestock/animals

Other livestock/animals

SHEEP BREEDINGSHEEP GRAZING-DRY

Sheep

Sheep

SMALL CROPS & FODDER—IRRIGATEDSMALL CROPS & FODDER—NON IRRIGATED

FodderFodderCropping

Cropping

SUGAR CANEGRAINSPEANUTSORCHARDSPINEAPPLESTROPICAL FRUITS
TURF FARMS
VINEYARDS
COTTONTOBACCOOIL SEEDSVACANT—LARGE HOUSE SITE
VACANT RURAL LAND (EXCL 01 & 04)
EXCLUSIVE USE AS SINGLE DWELLING OR FARMING
DWELLING—LARGE HOUSE SITE
SUBDIVIDED LAND—DISCOUNTED BY LG
GROUP TITLE (PRIMARY USE ONLY)NOT ALLOCATEDSTRATUM
VACANT URBAN LANDOUTBUILDINGSTRANSPORT TERMINALSPORTS CLUBS/FACILITIESOTHER CLUBS (NON BUSINESS)BUILDING UNITS (PRIMARY USE ONLY)CAR PARKCARAVAN PARKSCEMETERIESCHILD CARE—EX KINDERGARTEN
COLD STORES-ICEWORKSCOMMUNITY PROTECTION CENTRE
DRIVE-IN SHOPPING CENTREEDUCATIONAL—INCLUDING KINDERGARTEN
FUNERAL PARLOUR
GUEST HOUSE/PRIVATE HOTELHOSPITALS, CONV. HOMES (MEDICAL CARE) PRIVATE
HOTEL/TAVERN
LICENSED CLUBSMARINAMOTEL
MULTI UNIT DWELLING (FLATS)NURSERIES (PLANTS)
PROFESSIONAL OFFICESPUBLIC HOSPITALRELIGIOUS
RESIDENTIAL INSTITUTIONS (NON-MEDICAL CARE)RESTAURANT
SALES AREA OUTDOORS (DEALERS, CAR, BOATS, ETC.)SERVICE STATIONSHOPPING GROUP (2 TO 6 SHOPS)
SHOP-SINGLE
SHOWGROUND, RACECOURSE, AIRFIELDSINGLE UNIT DWELLING
WAREHOUSE & BULK STORESWELFARE HOMES/INSTITUTIONSWHARVESSPECIAL TOURIST ATTRACTION
SHOPPING GROUP (MORE THAN 6 SHOPS)WALKWAYRETAIL WAREHOUSE
LIGHT INDUSTRYNOXIOUS/OFFENSIVE INDUSTRY (INCL ABATTOIR)GENERAL INDUSTRY
BUILDERS YARD, CONTRACTORS YARDOIL DEPOT & REFINERY
HARBOUR INDUSTRIESTRANSFORMERS

Rural housing related

Rural housing related or NONE

Urban and recreational

Urban and recreational

Industrial

Industrial

It should be noted here that Primary land use“Fodder” was not treated as linked to beef as we areunable to identify which grazing animal the fodder
is being used to feed. Clearing on parcels with a
primary land use of fodder totalled 2,301 hectares, or
0.14% of clearing in Queensland.
QVAS data attributes a primary and secondary land
use to parcels based on information provided to the
Office of the Valuer General when a parcel is legallytransferred from one entity to another. It has been
noted that many gaziers on parcels in south west
Queensland have converted from a primary land
use of sheep to cattle prior to 2013, without a landtransfer occurring (no sale occured) and that clearing
on these parcels could be linked to beef. If this is thecase, deforestation and land clearing linked to beef islikely to be underestimated in this analysis.
Parcels < 30 hectares: Financial cost restricted thenumber of parcels that were able to be extracted
from Pricefinder. An initial analysis was conducted
to ascertain which parcels contained the bulk of theclearing. Parcels > 30 hectares contained 98% of the
SLATS detected clearing. The amount of clearing inparcels < 30 hectares was 2% of all detected SLATS
clearing or 36,448 hectares over the five year study
period. Therefore, clearing in parcels < 30 hectares,
although still very important, was excluded when
determining the land use that can be linked to thehighest amount of clearing. Approximately 67% of
the clearing in parcels < 30 hectares was attributed
a SLATS replacement land cover class of “Pasture”,
implying that a significant amount of the clearingthat is excluded in this analysis is likely to belinked to beef. This again suggests that the clearing
attributed to beef has been underestimated in thisreport due to the conservative analytic approach thatwas employed.

Parcels where land use data was not returned: QVAS
data from Pricefinder was not available for someparcels. These parcels were not able to be assignedwith land use attributes. Of the 102,227 parcels
within Pricefinder, 1,300 parcels were not assigned
land use data. Unassigned land use accounted for
12,226 hectares of the total SLATS clearing (0.71%).
Approximately 84% of the clearing in parcels that
had no data returned from Pricefinder was attributed
a SLATS replacement land cover class of “Pasture”,
again implying that a significant amount of theclearing that is excluded in this analysis is likely tobe linked to beef.
Parcels returned with more than one tenure: Someparcels were returned from Pricefinder with morethan one tenure. These parcels were excluded fromthe initial analysis because it was not possible toidentify which land use was responsible for theclearing (the clearing in these parcels totaled 32,891
hectares). In the second phase of the analysis, theseparcels were reassessed to determine the extent
linked to the most commonly cleared land use, i.e.
beef cattle. These parcels were assigned a mixed
land use in relation to beef during the second phaseanalysis. Land use for each parcel with more than
one tenure was allocated to one of the following
categories:(NONE)

STATE(SECONDARY LAND USE ONLY)LOCAL AUTHORITY (SECONDARY USE ONLY)COMMONWEALTH (SECONDARY USE ONLY)

N/A
N/A
N/A

State
Local authority
Commonwealth

FORESTRY & LOGSRESERVOIR, DAMS, BORES
DEFENCE FORCE ESTABLISHMENT

Other government land uses

Other government land uses

EXTRACTIVE
Not in QVASExtractive
Not in QVASExtractive
Not in QVAS* There may be land uses associated with parcels < 30 hectares that are not included in this table.

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Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

21

Table 7 Land use categories related to beef used in the second phase analysis
GIS derived land use attribute forsecond phase beef cattle analysis

Description

Included in the second phase beef cattle
analysis

No data from Pricefinder

The extract from the Pricefinder data was

No (excluded from all analysis phases andmissing data for these parcels

overall statistics)

Primary land use is beef cattle

Yes—Included in both initial and second phasePrimary beef

analyses. Eighty-six percent of parcels linked tobeef land uses have a primary land use of Beef
cattle.
Secondary beef

Secondary land use is beef cattle

Omitted from initial analysis, but Included in
the second phase analysis. Nine percent ofparcels linked to beef land uses were allocated asecondary land use of Beef cattle.

Multiple tenures containing beef

There are different land uses associatedOmitted from initial analysis, but included inwith different tenures on the parcel, but at

the second phase analysis. 1.8% of clearing isleast one is beef cattle.

on parcels that have multiple tenures and arelinked to beef

Not beef

Both the primary and secondary land uses

Included in both initial and second phase as

are not beef cattle

non-beef.

Multiple tenures containing no beef

There are different land uses associatedOmitted from initial analysis, but included inland useswith different tenures on the parcel, andthe second phase analysis as non-beef. 0.1% ofnone of them are linked to beef cattle.

clearing is on parcels that have multiple tenures

to assist in identifying which REs meet the definitionof Kyoto forest. The Queensland Herbarium usedstructural class codes to determine which REs
meet the Kyoto definition of forest (Table 10). EachRE has a structural class code that describes its
typical vegetation structure. Table 11 provides a listof all the structural class codes and the Kyoto forest
descriptor that each was assigned by the Queensland
Herbarium (November 2018). There were three Kyoto
forest descriptors identified by the Herbarium:
Kyoto Forest—These structure codes contain regional
ecosystems that all meet the Australian Kyoto
definition
Not Kyoto forest—These structure codes containregional ecosystems that DO NOT meet the Australian
Kyoto definition
Maybe Kyoto Forest—There are REs that contain bothforest and non-forest in their reference state. Somevary at fine scales (REs are fundamentally 1:100k
entities), while others might be forests in higher
rainfall parts of their range but not in the driercountry. REs with both forest and non-forest areespecially common in the arid bioregions, including
Northwest Highlands, Mitchell Grass Downs, Channel
Country and western Mulga Lands. The structuralclass codes that contain forest REs and non-forest
REs are categorised as “Maybe forest”.
The Queensland Herbarium noted that assessing
each RE individually instead of using structuralclasses would eradicate the need of the “Maybe
forest” category. Refining the methods of identifying
REs that meet the Kyoto forest definition (insteadof structural codes) would lead to more REs being
categorised as forest.
The “Maybe forest” classification was excluded
from the stage three deforestation analysis. Again,
this exclusion was done to ensure the deforestation
analysis was conservative and potentially
underestimated the detected forest clearing rather
than over-estimated the forest cleared.

Table 8 Structural formation classes

and are not linked to beef

Stage 3 Vegetation data that identifies
deforestation
Defining forest
The desktop analysis uses the following definitionof forest as defined in Australian Government,
Department of Environment and Energy, (2018)
National Inventory Report 2016 Volume 12, p. 2.
Commonwealth of Australia: Canberra.
“Forests include all vegetation with a tree height of at least
2 metres and crown canopy cover of 20 per cent or more
and lands with systems with a woody biomass vegetation
structure that currently fall below but which, in situ, could
potentially reach the threshold values of the definition offorest.”Vegetation stand/patch size area < 0.2 hectares
Polygons < 0.2 hectares were excluded from the forest
statistics. This is considered a conservative method
because these are not necessarily isolated polygons(some intact patches are split due to attributes
included in the dataset, such as land uses or SLATS

wilderness.org.au

epochs, and may be part of a forest patch that is > 0.2
hectares overall). This approach is also considered
conservative because the minimum patch size inthe definition refers to the patch size of the forest
not the clearing event. The vegetation patch size iseither equal to or greater than the event. Applying aminimum patch size of 0.2 hectares resulted in 5,449
hectares of clearing of forest regional ecosystems
between 2013 to 2018 to be excluded from the forest
analysis.
Determining Kyoto forest
Pre-clear Regional Ecosystem mapping v10.1, theRegional Ecosystem Description Database (REDD)
and advice from the Queensland Herbarium on
Regional Ecosystem (RE) structural classes wereused to identify REs that met the definition of Kyoto
forest. The Queensland Herbarium was approached

Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

Neldner, V.J., Wilson, B.A., Dillewaard, H.A., Ryan, T.S. and Butler, D.W. (2017) Methodology for Survey and Mapping of Regional Ecosystems
and Vegetation Communities in Queensland. Version 4.0. Updated May 2017. Queensland Herbarium, Queensland Department of Science,
Information Technology and Innovation, Brisbane. P 91, Table 28 Structural formation classes

23

TABLE 9 Vegetation class codes and the Kyoto forest descriptors from the Queensland Herbarium
Structural

Queensland herbarium advice

Structural

Queensland Herbarium advice (Kyoto forestclass code

(Kyoto forest descriptors)

class code

descriptors)

bare

Not forest

OHT

Not forest

CF

ForestOS

Not forest

CFN

Not forest

OSC

ForestCH

Not forest

OSS

Not forest

CHT

Not forest

OTG

Not forest

CSC

ForestOV

Not forest

CTG

Not forest

OVI

Not forestCV

Not forest

OW

Maybe forest

CVI

Not forestS

Not forest

DOHT

Not forest

SFB

Not forestDOS

Not forestSH

Not forestDS

Not forestSS

Not forest

FB

Not forest

STG

Not forestH

Not forest

TCF

ForestHG

Not forestTG

Not forest

LCF

ForestTOF

ForestLOF

ForestTOS

Not forest

LOW

Not forest

TOW

Maybe forest

LW

ForestTS

ForestOF

ForestTW

Forest

OFB

Not forestV

Not forestOH

Not forestVI

Not forest

OHG

Not forest

W

ForestData caveats and limitations
..

..

..

Regional Ecosystem Description Database (REDD) Environment and Science, Queensland Government, Regional ecosystems descriptions,licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Accessed on 15/10/2018
Neldner, V.J., Wilson, B.A., Dillewaard, H.A., Ryan, T.S. and Butler, D.W. (2017) Methodology for Survey and Mapping of Regional Ecosystems andVegetation Communities in Queensland. Version 4.0. Updated May 2017. Queensland Herbarium, Queensland Department of Science, Information
Technology and Innovation, Brisbane.

Mixed polygons
Due to the scale of the regional ecosystem mapping,the mapping process can allocate up to five REs to apolygon, designating a percentage cover to each RE
within the polygon. These are referred to as mixed
polygons.
In the deforestation analysis, 10% of polygons weremixed, containing up to five REs each. Where mixed
polygons occured, each RE was replaced with its
structural class code and its corresponding Kyoto
forest descriptor. The percentage cover for each RE
was carried through to the Kyoto forest descriptor
step. This meant that a percentage cover could bedetermined for each of the forest descriptors within

wilderness.org.au

each mixed polygon. Each mixed polygon had amaximum of three values (forest, maybe forest and notforest). Where the polygon was mixed, the clearing
was attributed with one of the following:
1) Forest (100% Kyoto forest REs)
2) not forest (100% not Kyoto forest REs)
3) maybe forest (100% maybe Kyoto forest REs)4) mixed containing 50% to 95% Kyoto forest REs5) mixed containing 5% to 45% Kyoto forest REs6) mixed containing 5% to 95% maybe Kyoto
forest REs
This analysis used 100% Kyoto forest REs and 50 95% Kyoto forest REs in the Kyoto forest analysis for
deforestation. Polygons containing less than 50%
Kyoto forest REs were omitted.

Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland..

There is 35,219 hectares of detected clearing inparcels < 30 hectares. This clearing is excluded
from the analysis; 67% of this is identified as
pasture in the SLATS replacement land coverclass, and are likely to contain beef land uses.
This analysis is a conservative calculationof deforestation and woody vegetation loss
associated with beef.
The forest structural class codes were used to
identify forests that meet the definition used inAustralia as defined in the National Inventory
Report. The forest descriptors include “Maybe
forest”. This exists for structural class codesthat contain regional ecosystems that areforest in certain bioregions, but not in others.
Clearing in “Maybe forest” is not included in
the deforestation numbers, meaning that when
the forest structure assessments by RE become
available, the deforestation areas will increase
for this analysis.
QVAS data uses economic assessments of land
uses on a property, and where land has multiple
uses, the primary land use reflects the highest
economic activity. Area is not necessarily thebasis for determining the primary land use. In
cases where there are multiple land uses andthe valuer determines that the primary land
use is beef, it is likely that it is also the biggest
area. It is likely that this caveat mostly impacts
clearing attributed to small area productions
such as vineyards and poultry. In these cases, thevaluer would assign the primary land use of thevineyard, even if the land owner is using most of
the land for beef production.
QVAS data is usually updated if a propertytransfer occurs, such as when it is sold. The
Office of the Valuer-General notes that a land
holder could change the land use from one
type of grazing to another and the department
may not become aware of the change for some

..

..

..

..

time. South west Queensland has seen a shift
in grazing trends from sheep to beef in the last
decade and this is not reflected in the QVAS data.
This outdated QVAS data could significantly
underestimate the impact on the clearing anddeforestation rate associated with beef in thisreport.
Mixed polygons containing forest structural
codes < 50% were excluded from this analysis.
Including these polygons in this analysis
would have increased the deforestation figure,again showing that this analysis chose theconservative approach.
"Timber plantation" replacement land coverclass is defined by SLATS as timber harvesting instate or privately owned native or exotic forests
or plantations. SLATS uses the Digital Cadastral
Database and Agricultural Land Audit datasets
to determine this replacement cover class. Someof these parcels have a beef primary land use.
All "Timber plantation" in SLATS is excluded fromthis analysis as it is assumed to be a harvest.
However, it has been ascertained that clearing
with this replacement category may not be a
harvest. In lots where the valuers office assigns acattle primary land use, the clearing on these lots
is excluded from the analysis. Further analysisof clearing in "Timber plantation" replacement
categories could increase the clearing linked tobeef.
The Wilderness Society has chosen to beconservative in this analysis and refinement of
the methods would result in a higher attributionof clearing to beef land uses.
This is a desktop analysis only. Please referto the data custodian metadata for further
information on individual dataset limitations.

25

Endnotes
1
2
3
4

5

6
7

8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23

24
25
26
27

28

29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36

37

Queensland Department of Environment and Science (2011-2018), Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS) reports, 2011-12 (2013); 2012-13 (2014); 2013-14 (2015);
2014-15 (2016); 2015-16 (2017), 2016-17 (2018); 2017-18 (2018). DES, Queensland Government: Brisbane, Queensland.
WWF International, (2018) Living Planet Report ‘Deforestation Fronts’, p. 28. Accessed online at: http://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_report_2018/
Neldner, V.J., Laidlaw, M.J., McDonald,K.R., Mathieson, M.T., Melzer, R.I., Seaton, R., McDonald, W.J.F., Hobson, R., and Limpus, C.J. (2017). Scientific review of the
impacts of land clearing on threatened species in Queensland. Queensland Government: Brisbane, Queensland.
Australian Government, Department of the Environment and Energy (2016) Australia’s emissions projections 2016 Chart data Commonwealth of Australia:
Canberra, ACT. Accessed online at: http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/publications/emissions-projections-2016 The projected deforestation
emissions are: 49Mt in 2017, 53Mt in 2018, and 51Mt in 2019.
Waterhouse, J., Schaffelke, B., Bartley, B., , Eberhard, R., Jon Brodie, J., Star, M., Thorburn, P., Rolfe, J., Ronan, M., Taylor, B., and Kroon, F. (2017). 2017 ScientificConsensus Statement: Land use impacts on Great Barrier Reef water quality and ecosystem condition. The State of Queensland: Queensland. Accessed online at http://
www.reefplan.qld.gov.au/about/scientific-consensus-statement/
Queensland Department of Environment and Science (2011-2018), Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS) reports, 2011-12 (2013); 2012-13 (2014); 2013-14 (2015);
2014-15 (2016); 2015-16 (2017), 2016-17 (2018); 2017-18 (2018). DES, Queensland Government: Brisbane, Queensland.
Queensland Department of Environment and Science. (2018.) Land cover change in Queensland 2016–17 and 2017–18: a Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS)
Summary Report. DES: Brisbane, Queensland. Accessed online at https://www.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0031/91876/landcover-change-inqueensland-2016-17-and-2017-18.pdf
Australian Government, Department of the Environment and Energy, (2018) Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: March 2018, p. 22.
Commonwealth of Australia: Canberra, ACT.
This is explained in the methods section p. 10.
Megan C. Evans (2016) ‘Deforestation in Australia: drivers, trends and policy responses’ Pacific Conservation Biology 22(2) 130-150 https://doi.org/10.1071/
PC15052 Published: 6 May 2016
WWF International, (2018) Living Planet Report ‘Deforestation Fronts’, p. 28. Accessed online at: http://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_report_2018/
Calculations are based on national average of 600,000 hectares of deforestation and native forest logging per year, 1,643 hectares per day, 68 hectares perhour, 1.14 hectares per minute. 1.14 hectares x 2 minutes = 2.28 = well over the 1.77 hectare area of the MCG. So this is a technically a conservative figure.
Bradshaw C (2012) “Little left to lose: deforestation and forest degradation in Australia since European colonization” Journal of Plant Ecology 5 (1) p. 111.
Finn, H.C. & Stephens, N.S., (2017). The invisible harm: land clearing is an issue of animal welfare. Wildlife Research (CSIRO Journal). CSIRO Publishing. p.4.
Australian Government, Department of Environment and Energy, (2017). Australia’s emission projections 2017—chart data. Commonwealth of Australia: Canberra,
ACT. Accessed online at: http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/publications/emissions-projections-2017
Australian Government, Department of Environment and Energy, (2017). Australia State of the Environment 2016—Biodiversity report, p.11. Commonwealth ofAustralia: Canberra, ACT.
Ecological Society of Australia (2019) Scientists’ Declaration: Strong legislation needed to curb Australia’s accelerating rate of land clearing Published online at :https://www.ecolsoc.org.au/scientists-declaration-strong-legislation-needed-curb-australias-accelerating-rate-land-clearing
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (2014) Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2014, p.229. GBRMPA: Townsville, Queensland.
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (2014) Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2014, p.229. GBRMPA: Townsville, Queensland.
Commonwealth of Australia (2015), Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan, p. 36. https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/d98b3e53-146b-4b9c-a84a2a22454b9a83/files/reef-2050-long-term-sustainability-plan.pdf
Commonwealth of Australia (2015), Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan, p. 36. https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/d98b3e53-146b-4b9c-a84a2a22454b9a83/files/reef-2050-long-term-sustainability-plan.pdf
This is explained in the methods section, p. 18-24.
Donofrio S., Rothrock, P., and Leonard, J. (2018) Zooming In: Companies, Commodities, & Traceability Commitments that Count, Forest Trends: Washington, DC. See
also: Stephen Donofrio, Philip Rothrock, and Jonathan Leonard (2017). Supply Change: Tracking Corporate Commitments to Deforestation-free Supply Chains, Forest
Trends: Washington, DC. Available online at: https://www.forest-trends.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2017SupplyChange_Trackin-Committments.pdf
New York Declaration on Forests (2018), NYDF Global Platform ‘Endorsers’ accessed online at: https://nydfglobalplatform.org/endorsers/
United Nations, (2015) New York Declaration on Forests and Action Statement, accessed online at: https://unfccc.int/news/new-york-declaration-on-forests
The Accountability Framework Draft Operational Guidance on Cutoff Dates, p. 2. https://accountability-framework.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Op-Guidance-onCutoff-Dates-DRAFT-2018-7-NEW-NOTE.pdf
McDonald’s Corporation (2015) McDonald’s Corporation Commitment on Forests, updated February 2017, and McDonald’s Commitment on Forests Supporting
Addendum available online at: https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/gwscorp/scale-for-good/McDonaldsCommitmentOnForests.pdf See also:
http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/scale-for-good/our-planet/conserving-forests.html
McDonald’s Corporation (2017–19) , ‘Beef sustainability’ Conserving Forests accessed online at: https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/scale-for-good/
our-planet/conserving-forests.html#goals The priority section reads: “In order to better focus our efforts, we have mapped out and identified a list of countries thathave a high deforestation risk, as defined in the WWF Living Forests report, and that we currently are sourcing from: Fiber – Argentina, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, Russia and Vietnam. Coffee – Honduras, Indonesia and Vietnam. Palm oil – Indonesia and Malaysia. Soy – Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. Beef – Argentina,
Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay.”“China’s Sustainable Meat Declaration an opportunity for farmers, says WWF” (November 2017) Beef Central Accessed online at: https://www.beefcentral.
com/news/chinas-sustainability-declaration-an-opportunity-for-farmers-says-wwf/
The Consumer Goods Forum (2018), Environmental Sustainability, ‘Commitments and Achievements, Achieving Zero Net Deforestation’ France. Accessed online
at: https://www.theconsumergoodsforum.com/initiatives/environmental-sustainability/about/our-commitments+and+achievements
Dairy Australia (2019), Australian Dairy Industry Sustainability Report 2018, p. 87.
Meat & Livestock Australia Ltd on behalf of the Red Meat Advisory Council (RMAC) and the Sustainability Steering Group, The Australian Beef Sustainability
Framework (2018), ‘Six priority areas for action’ accessed online at https://www.sustainableaustralianbeef.com.au/six-key-priority-areas-for-action
Landcare Australia, (2019) ‘Our Programs’ accessed online at: https://landcareaustralia.org.au/our-programme/20-million-trees/
Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources (2019) ‘Media Release: Rewarding biodiversity on farm’ Commonwealth of Australia, accessed online at: http://
minister.agriculture.gov.au/littleproud/Pages/Media-Releases/rewarding-biodiversity-on-farm.aspx
Agforce Queensland (2019) ‘Grazing BMP’ accessed online at https://agforceqld.org.au/?tgtPage=events&page_id=760
Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (2014) Principles and Criteria for Defining Global Sustainable Beef As adopted by the members of the Global Roundtable for
Sustainable Beef November, 2014 p. 8. Accessed online at: https://grsbeef.org/resources/Pictures/2017%20Template%20Graphics/grsb_principles_and_criteria_for_global_sustainable_beef_2016_logo%20(6).pdf
Australian Government, Department of Environment and Energy, (2018) ‘National Inventory Report 2016 Volume 12, p. 2. Commonwealth of Australia: Canberra

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Drivers of Deforestation and land clearing in Queensland

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Life. Support.