A fight is brewing over the definition of deforestation in the Australian context, as the European Union prepares to implement rules banning the importation of beef grown on deforested land.
Cattle Australia today released its definition of deforestation. Its version excludes tree clearing on land that is mainly for agricultural use as long as it complies with government regulations.
The definition says deforestation is the conversion of natural forest to another land use, or severe and sustained degradation of the forest.
To be considered forest by Cattle Australia, the trees must meet certain thresholds for area, height and canopy coverage. To be considered a natural forest, the trees must be mainly native.
Greenpeace protest about deforestation at a McDonald’s restaurant in Melbourne.
The biggest point of contention is the treatment of regenerated forest. The Cattle Australia definition only protects regenerated forest if it has not been cleared since 1990.
If the land has been cleared at any point in the past 34 years, even if it has been substantially regenerated, Cattle Australia says it would remain classed as agricultural land and clearing it would not be deforestation. It gives the example of it being OK to clear trees in Queensland’s Brigalow Belt where there has been significant regrowth since 1990.
Gemma Plesman, senior campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “It’s completely nonsensical. These forests can still provide homes to threatened species including koalas and should be protected to allow the recovery of wildlife already obliterated by the beef industry.”
Loading
Earlier this week 30 scientists at various universities signed a statement saying that “Australia’s deforestation rates are globally significant, being ranked alongside places like the Amazon and Borneo, year after year for being a deforestation front”.
They called for businesses to commit to being not just deforestation-free but “conversion-free”, meaning preventing the destruction of any natural ecosystem, not just forest.
“Importantly, in an Australian context, deforestation and conversion can be destructive regardless of the age of the habitat being cleared or whether or not it is mature or regrowing,” the statement said.
Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt has signalled he is sympathetic to the farming lobby’s definition. He wrote to the EU commissioner and the EU agriculture commissioner last month asking for a delay to ensure the policy is implemented fairly.
A spokesperson for Watt told this masthead in May: “Statistics associating Australia with deforestation often combine clearing of primary forest, re-clearing of regrowth forest, and clearing of non-forest vegetation into a single number and do not include the extent of forest regrowth and establishment occurring within Australia.”
Read the full article here
