Land Clearing

11 December 2002

New Landclearing Laws a Step Forward for the NT

The Environment Centre Northern Territory has today welcomed the introduction of new landclearing laws in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory Government today announced the introduction of interim clearing controls to apply to all areas in the Northern Territory not currently subject to landclearing regulation. Landclearing is one of the major causes of biodiversity loss and environmental degradation internationally, and landclearing has been increasing in recent years in the Northern Territory.

Environment Centre Northern Territory Coordinator Mark Wakeham said today:

"As of today for the first time ever there will be some controls on landclearing for the whole of the Territory. This means that landholders will have to apply to the Planning Authority if they wish to clear more than 1 hectare of land. We congratulate the Northern Territory Government for introducing the controls, although there will need to be a lot of work over the next couple of years to ensure that the controls are effective."

"The new clearing controls will make it possible to determine how much land is being cleared each year. To date the Northern Territory has had very poor data on clearing rates. The interim controls are to be replaced in 2 years with a more comprehensive framework for regulating landclearing. The Environment Centre is hopeful that the final policy includes areas in the Litchfield Shire and pastoral lands, which are excluded from the interim controls as they are subject to existing approvals process. One only has to look at the enormous escalation in landclearing in the Litchfield Shire and the persistent breaches of the regulations to see that the current regime is not working in the rural area."

"These controls will hopefully help us to reduce the significant environmental impacts of current landclearing. However the Environment Centre believes that we should be learning from experience in southern Australia and stopping landclearing altogether as recently recommended by the Wentworth Group of Scientists. By stopping broadscale landclearing in the Northern Territory we could guarantee that we avoid the problems of the Murray-Darling basin and elsewhere and preserve a healthy and in tact environment for future Territorians."

For more information on Land Clearing contact ECNT:
Phone: 08 8981 1984
Email: ecnt@octa4.net.au

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