OPINION: THE Queensland Labor Government and radical environmental groups spend an inordinate amount of time defaming our agricultural community with half-truths.
This agitation has resulted in Annastacia Palasczcuk, as part of the election campaign, promising to reverse reforms made to vegetation laws by the Newman government.
One of the particular concerns of such groups is self-assessable codes with the claims of hectares cleared or potentially cleared becoming more exaggerated week by week. Emotions are stirred by language such as “open slather” and “desertification” caused by cutting down every tree.
Most sectors in the Australian economy had increases in greenhouse gas emissions with agriculture showing by far the largest decrease.
- Joanne Rae, PRA
The complex set of regulations that are the self-assessable codes has allowed just 0.03 per cent of the state to be cleared last year but with regrowth statistics not published so that people can judge the net effect for themselves.
However, figures for biomass by region, show increases in most of the 13 regions with the largest decrease (in biomass) in the south east corner of the state.
Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, which is prepared in accordance with United Nations guidelines, tells a different story.
Most sectors in the Australian economy had increases in greenhouse gas emissions with agriculture showing by far the largest decrease. This is hardly the scenario that green groups have brainwashed media and city dwellers into believing.
For the 2016 year there was an overall increase in greenhouse gases of 0.8pc. The increase was saved from being quite significant by agriculture having a decrease of 3.4pc and Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (the area where tree clearing is counted) a decrease of 12.7pc. The only other sector to achieve a decrease was Fugitive Emissions which was largely achieved as a result of a decrease in coal production at 0.8pc.
Australia’s 2017 submission to the United Nations on Land Sector Estimates shows a continuing downward trend in emissions from the land sector since 1990.
“In net terms, forests are re-appearing on land previously cleared faster than land managers can re-clear that bush encroachment,” the submission reads,” the report reads.
“The area of primary forest [remnant vegetation] converted to other land uses was estimated to be 56,000 hectares, down by 90pc from an estimated 600,000ha in 1990.
“The area of new secondary forest [regrowth] regenerating on land previously cleared was 526,000ha in 2015, which is 225,000ha more than the estimated clearing of secondary forests.”
UN sanctioned calculation method takes no note of the fact that NASA’s OKO2 satellite and Japan’s IBUKI satellite which measure actual CO2 levels shows Australia as a greenhouse sink.
