Environmental scientists have criticised a move by the Australian government to protect the beef industry against European laws that will ban imports from areas with land clearing, saying cattle farming is “the biggest single driver of deforestation in Australia”.
The laws, which passed the European parliament in 2022 and come into effect in January 2025, will ban the import of goods produced in areas where land clearing occurs. Australian farmers have raised concerns that it could impact Australia’s $143m European beef export market, which accounts for 1.3% of total beef exports.
Speaking at a beef industry event in Queensland on Tuesday, the agriculture minister, Murray Watt, said he had requested the European Union commissioner delay the law’s implementation.
“I acknowledge that there is a lot of uncertainty and confusion within the industry about what this rule will mean for our producers going forward,” he said. Other countries, including New Zealand and the US, have also raised concerns over the legislation.
Later, a spokesperson for the minister said the government has requested any penalties from the law to be delayed by at least two years so its implications can be fully understood because its “unclear in its meaning and application”.
The effect of the legislation would be most acute in Queensland, where 45% of Australia’s cattle graze. The World Wildlife Fund has identified Queensland as a major part of the only global deforestation hotspot in the developed world, the majority of which is said to be driven by the beef industry.
The University of Queensland adjunct senior lecturer Martin Taylor said the Australian government should be supportive of strong environmental legislation rather than attempt to delay it.
A 2023 Australian Conservation Foundation report, authored by Taylor, found as few as 205 properties were responsible for half of all land-clearing that occurred in Queensland.
Queensland government data found almost 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres) of woody vegetation was cleared in 2020-2021, which was a reduction on previous years. According to analysis by the Wilderness Society, about 65% of that land was cleared for livestock pastures, and, of that, more than half was regrowth vegetation more than 15 years old.
But an official federal agricultural department briefing note to Watt in January last year, released under freedom of information laws, said “there is no risk Australian beef and leather products are connected to deforestation”.
Taylor described the claim as “patently false”, saying “beef is the biggest single driver of deforestation in Australia”.
In a June 2023 letter to the European Commission, also released under FoI the federal agriculture department said it was seeking Australian exports to Europe to be assessed as “deforestation free”.
The spokesperson for Watt said the government was committed to stopping and reserving global forest loss and that “Australia’s forest coverage is extensive and expanding”. Taylor said this claim is “ecologically specious” as it equates young regrowth saplings with the loss of mature trees.
A spokesperson from Meat and Livestock Australia said the majority of land clearing is legal and occurs on a rotational basis. They said claims Australia is a deforestation hotspot are “flawed”.
This week the MLA released an online platform developed with WWF Australia and the University of Queensland to allow producers to compile on-farm environmental data.
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Prof Lesley Hughes, of the Climate Council, said Australia has been “one of the most prolific land clearers in the world”. Hughes said the cattle industry has recognised that there is now an expectation “for farmers to be good stewards of their land, and many are, but there’s still a fair way to go”.
Dr Chris Parker, the chief executive of the peak body for grass-fed producers, Cattle Australia, said he supports the minister’s request for a delay.
Cattle Australia released seven draft principles for an industry standard definition of deforestation, at a presentation at Beef Week in Rockhampton on Thursday. “There is no clear definition on deforestation aligned to our Australian land management practices that supports our biodiversity,” Parker said.
Head of Nature at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Glenn Walker, described the move by Cattle Australia as “like the fox guarding the henhouse”.
“It is simply not credible for the beef industry to cook up their own fantasy definition of deforestation and deny there is a problem,” Walker said.
Dr Megan Evans, senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales, said graziers can be “compatible with biodiversity” and that a small number of producers clearing large amounts of land is negatively skewing data.
“Rural communities will argue that it’s not deforestation, it’s land management, and there are grey areas,” she said. “But the fact is the extent of land clearing in Queensland is still internationally significant.”