Demand for steak fuelling deforestation and extinction in NSW

Soaring demand for red meat is contributing to habitat loss across NSW that has put the state on course to lose nearly a quarter of all known plant and animal species in the next century.

As the Minns government releases the NSW biodiversity outlook report on Wednesday, environmental groups are growing impatient that the government is yet to reverse controversial 2016 land-clearing laws championed by former deputy premier John Barilaro.

Nature Conservation Council spokesperson Clancy Barnard said the biodiversity decline since the last report in 2020 was “shocking and deeply frustrating”. He said Labor came to power promising to act on land clearing, but had failed to deliver so far.

Cattle on a farm in NSW. Beef production is one of the contributors to land clearing in the state.Credit: Janie Barrett

“We haven’t seen the level of ambition we hoped, especially in the wake of the Henry review,” Barnard said, referring to the review of the Biodiversity Conservation Act delivered last year by economist Ken Henry.

“If we don’t see movement soon, we’re really going to start saying they’re not going to deliver.”

The Alliance for Nature, an umbrella group of environmental organisations, last week estimated about 95,000 hectares of land and 100 million trees had been lost since the Minns government was elected. This assumes land clearing continued on its previous trajectory since the laws have not changed.

The Henry review came alongside a separate review into the native vegetation provisions of the Local Land Services Act tabled by Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty. Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said the government was preparing a whole-of-government response to both.

The biodiversity outlook shows the health and diversity of eco-systems has declined in almost every measure across the state, though the coastal regions and coastal mountain ranges are considered more ecologically resilient than the sheep-and-wheat belt of inland NSW.

Only 50 per cent of listed threatened species are expected to survive in 100 years’ time, down from 52 per cent in 2012. Only 76 per cent of all known species were expected to survive over the next century, down from 79 per cent.

The bright spot is that 11.2 per cent of NSW is now conserved for permanent protection, up from 9.9 per cent in 2017.

The biggest threat to biodiversity identified by the report is habitat loss from land clearing, followed by climate change and invasive species.

Sharpe said the decline in biodiversity was worrying, but the NSW government was “working hard to turn this around” by adding land to national parks and private conservation agreements, reintroducing native species to areas of local extinction, and boosting environmental protection laws.

Official NSW data shows agriculture, especially pasture for grazing, is the biggest contributor to land clearing, dwarfing logging or housing development. Clearing of woodland for agriculture grew 15 per cent in 2021, the most recent figures show.

The Australian Conservation Foundation’s nature and business campaigner, Nathaniel Pelle, said beef was the biggest driver of deforestation in NSW and nationally, putting Australia at odds with other OECD nations. This assessment was based on satellite imagery of land clearing and on-the-ground checks to classify land use.

“As a wealthy state with so little of its forest left, the Minns government should get on with it and put a stop to land clearing whether it’s for pasture or timber harvesting,” Pelle said, adding that federal action was also needed.

Meat and Livestock Australia figures show Australian beef exports are growing at 17 per cent a year, and domestic consumption of beef and lamb remains about four times higher per person than the global average.

A NSW Farmers spokesperson said figures on land clearing did not tell the full story and “farmers made significant contributions towards our environment”.

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