Land Clearing

3 February 2003

An end to the Daly as we know it?

Landclearing applications a test of NT Government's new laws.

The Daly River area is under immediate threat from a raft of landclearing applications lodged with the Northern Territory Government in January 2003. In the first month of the operation of the new landclearing permits system in the Northern Territory farmers in the Daly region applied to clear over 8000 hectares of native vegetation. The Northern Territory Minister for Infrastructure and Planning, Kon Vatskalis, is yet to approve the landclearing proposals.

ECNT Coordinator Mark Wakeham said today:

"If this landclearing is approved it will lead to a huge increase in the rate of landclearing in the Northern Territory. The Daly basin area, renowned for its biodiversity values and recreational fishing, will be irreversibly altered. By our calculations farmers in the area want to clear 8100 hectares which will lead to the loss of 1.6 million trees. This area is estimated to be home to over 350,000 animals, many of whom will die as a result of the landclearing. This area is almost as large as the total area that has been cleared in the Litchfield Shire area over the past 20 years."

"This flood of landclearing applications is a real test for the Northern Territory Government's new landclearing laws introduced in December 2002. Now that we have landclearing laws the hard work begins for the Northern Territory Government. If we are to avoid the environmental destruction that has taken place in areas like the Murray Darling Basin in southern Australia the Northern Territory Government needs to reduce landclearing rates, not allow them to accelerate. It is crucial that Minister Vatskalis rejects the broadscale clearing proposals currently before him and his department."

"The Daly is one of the Northern Territory's best loved and most environmentally important rivers. Broadscale landclearing in the catchment and extraction of huge quantities of groundwater for irrigation will destroy the area's fragile balance. The Northern Territory Government should be looking at options for protecting the area's biodiversity through a system of national parks and off-reserve management for conservation rather than pushing intensive agriculture," concluded Mr Wakeham.

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

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