A leading vegetation management consultant believes the Palaszczuk Government’s attempts to repeal vegetation management laws shapes as a bigger threat to Queensland landholders than the live export trade debacle in 2011.
Peter Spies, a former soil conservation and vegetation management officer with the state government, and now a grazier and consultant based on the Atherton Tablelands, likened attempts to amend current clearing legislation to “kicking the can at landholders”.
“This will result in higher food prices,” Mr Spies said. “This will ruin the productivity of our native rangelands through increased woody tree species. This will increase runoff and be bad for the reef through less groundcover. It is not trees that protect the reef, it is groundcover. This is just bad policy.”
Mr Spies has helped a number of landholders to obtain vegetation management permits throughout north Queensland including Olive Vale Station, Laura, on Cape York Peninsula.
He has made a submission to the Agriculture and Environment Committee on the Palaszczuk Government’s proposed changes to the Vegetation Management Act and Framework. Mr Spies said farmers must be allowed to manage their vegetation in a practical, environmentally sustainable way.
“Currently, landholders are unable to clear or even achieve “parkland-style” clearing for grazing purposes,” Mr Spies said. “Scale of operation is a major contributor towards profitability in the beef industry and the effects are amplifying. Major issues facing the industry include inadequate scale in more closely settled areas, significant cost escalations and doubling of debt over last decade. The return on assets has declined.”
“Previous legislation around vegetation management, under the Beattie and Bligh Governments, impacted both development and maintenance options for producers in affected regions. Large areas of the north have not had the opportunity to be developed over time.”
Submissions close on 25 April.
High Value Northern Irrigation Under Threat
NORTHERN beef producers would be hit hard if high value and high value irrigated agriculture was removed from vegetation management framework as proposed by the Palaszczuk Government, land management consultant Peter Spies said.
“Throughout northern Queensland, energy and protein become limiting in cattle diets during the dry season and this can cause graziers issues with stock survival and welfare through years of drought,” said Mr Spies, who has made a submission to the Agriculture and Environment Committee on the proposed changes.
“High value agriculture and irrigated high value agriculture permits provide farmers in northern Queensland with the opportunity to grow fodder and grain for supplementing in the dry season and finishing off stock for market, and allow for some diversification.”
Mr Spies said large areas of north Queensland had not had the opportunity to be developed over time, unlike other areas.
“The northern Einasleigh uplands has over 96 per cent remnant vegetation and there is untapped potential for improved productivity through sustainable development of particular land types,” Mr Spies said.
“By allowing for discrete, suitable areas of soil be developed, on those properties only that aspire to some economic development, we retain landscape connectivity, allow for stocking rates to be reduced on other parts of the property, improve land condition through grass growth, improved ground cover and less soil erosion and suspended sediment.
“The biggest cause of environmental degradation is not tree-clearing, it is poverty.
“Any proposed changes to the vegetation management framework will deny people, indigenous and non-indigenous, social and economic opportunity.”
