New vegetation management alarm bells are going off in Property Rights Australia and AgForce circles as people begin to scrutinise the draft of the new self-assessable code for managing thickened vegetation.
PRA president Dale Stiller is calling the proposed new regulation “science denial”, while AgForce’s vegetation committee chairman John te Kloot says it isn’t practical and and would lead to undesirable ecosystem and biodiversity changes.
“For example, in a ‘very sparse’ Regional Ecosystem, if you have less than 500 immature trees but greater than 50 per cent low shrubs, you can clear the low shrubs but you can’t clear the immature trees, because you haven’t hit the designated target for them.
“How can you realistically do that?”
Self-assessable codes to manage low-risk vegetation clearing without the need for formal approval were brought in by the Newman government, and were reviewed last year.
According to a spokesman, the government is delivering on its election commitment to retain the codes.
“The independent review showed that the codes provide a suitable mechanism to address low-risk vegetation management. However, they do not reflect the latest scientific research and need to be updated,” he said.
Mr Stiller said that far from being scientific, the government was on a set course that ignored research that showed thickening.
“In March 2015 a research paper came out called Recent Reversal in loss of Global Terrestrial Biomass, in which scientists from UNSW, ANU and CSIRO all played a part.
“It found ‘unexpectedly large vegetation increases in savannahs and scrublands’ across the world.
“In northern Australia, especially Queensland, it showed not only thickening but grassland encroachment.”
Mr Stiller said the state certainly didn’t need changes that took away landholders’ fundamental legal protections and didn’t take science into consideration.
“This sort of interference will mean SACs will continue in name only. They’ll become impracticable and uneconomic.”
AgForce’s John te Kloot said an example of the draft code that failed to understand on-ground reality was the requirement to keep all immature trees within five metres of a mature tree.
“The aim is to preserve the mature tree, but the immature ones will most likely choke it out, so why not improve its chance of survival, not diminish it, as per the new draft code.”
Among other concerns, he believed combining five bioregions into one would result in prescriptive tree density targets that wouldn’t account for variations in tree ecosystems across the state.
“If you make a good regulation, people will abide by it, but if you make a bad one, it costs money to regulate it, and people won’t cooperate.”
All 15 existing self-assessable codes are set to be reviewed by December, according to Mr te Kloot.
Both he and Mr Stiller, and the government, are urging interested parties to review the draft thinning code and make a submission.
Further information is available at: https://www.dnrm.qld.gov.au/our-department/corporate-information/policies-initiatives/vegetation-management/review-sac