Bob Katter questions how state government will look after larger national parks

Bob Katter is questioning why the state government is protecting more and more national parks when one in his electorate is overrun with invasive weeds. Read the full story.

Kennedy MP Bob Katter, Far North grazier Jack Fraser and Hill MP Shane Knuth at Forty Mile Scrub National Park.

Bob Katter says a weed-filled national park with a dangerous amount of undergrowth sits spitting distance from well-maintained grazing land in the Far North.

The Kennedy MP is calling on the state government for more resources for national parks or “a return of the land” to private graziers.

Forty Mile Scrub National Park is 6330 hectares, split by the Kennedy Highway, about 220 kilometres by road southwest of Cairns.

Arson and accidental fires are a recurring problem for the park and an illegal campfire in 2019 sparked a catastrophic bushfire.

The state government is doubling the percentage of the state’s protected areas by 2030, from 8.2 per cent to 17 per cent.

But Mr Katter has called into question how the state will look after this increasingly large area.

“The trees are all native timber, I didn’t see one single introduced species on the other side of the road where the cattleman is,” Mr Katter said while knee-deep in the brush of the national park.

Forty Mile Scrub National Park, about 220 kilometres by road southwest of Cairns.

“The grass is native, the trees are native. On this side, there’s nothing native. On that side a cattle station owns it. This side, national park-owned,” Mr Katter said.

“National parks - they create these great big parks, but there’s no one looking after it.

“The French pay their farmers to stay on the land - because they say someone has to look after the land - who better than the farmers,” Mr Katter said.

Grazing land on the other side of the highway had maintained vegetation which was far less of a fire threat, he said.

The once dense Forty Mile Scrub south of Mt Garnet has been reduced to ash by bushfire. Photo: John Andersen

“There’s a cattle station owner across the road. If this fire crossed the road, the cattle station owner would’ve immediately put the fire out,” Mr Katter said.

Knuth said woody weeds, feral pigs and feral cats thrived in national parks.

A Department of Environment and Science spokesman said following the bushfire, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service conducted various planned burn programs and pest and weed programs to restore and protect the natural and cultural values of the national park.

Fire-sensitive semi-evergreen vine thickets did not recover well from bushfire and it would be decades before the extent of recovery would be known because of the severity of the 2019 bushfires.

Environment Minister Leanne Linard was unable to comment before deadline.

Originally published as Bob Katter questions how state government will look after larger national parks