New research from RSPCA Queensland and Greenpeace Australia Pacific paints a dire reality of the impact deforestation is having on native wildlife.
To read the full report, click here.
An ongoing animal welfare crisis
Queensland and New South Wales are a global deforestation hotspot. The bushland being cleared in these states is rich in native animal life, yet many species are already listed as threatened: like koalas, gliders and many bird and reptile species.
From 2016-2020, 2.4 million hectares of forest and woodland habitats were bulldozed in NSW and Queensland.
Our new report, co-authored with RSPCA Queensland, reveals the shocking impact that this deforestation has on native wildlife populations.
In the 2.4 million hectares of destroyed forest and bushland, 100 million animals were killed, injured or displaced.
This figure includes up to:
4.5 million mammals
9.3 million birds
and over 96 million reptiles
Koalas killed
Koalas were listed as endangered in 2022 in NSW and Queensland, just 10 years after first being listed as vulnerable.
Deforestation is not only wiping out vast swathes of koala habitat, but is also causing habitat fragmentation, which puts koalas at increased risk of injury, displacement or death.
Fragmentation occurs when large areas of habitat are broken up into smaller areas. In order to move from one patch of bushland to another, koalas are forced to travel on the ground, putting them at increased risk of dog attacks and road incidents, as well as shock and stress.
The total number of koalas losing habitat and presumed killed in NSW and Queensland would be 5,998 over five years, or 1,200 every year.
Wildlife hospitals stretched to the limit
The Greenpeace forest campaign team recently visited RSPCA Queensland’s Wacol wildlife hospital, south-east of Brisbane, to get an inside look at deforestation’s impact on wildlife.
We met a range of different species receiving care at RSPCA, including koalas, brushtail possum joeys, kookaburras and flying foxes.
During our visit, we spoke with Tim Portas, Wildlife Veterinary Director at Wacol. Watch our interview with him below.
“It does actually make me wonder if I’m still on this earth in 20 or 30 years whether I will look back at this… and think I was here to see the last of Queensland’s koalas”
– Tim Portas, RSPCA Queensland
The Wacol facility was built to accommodate roughly 8,000 animals each year. However, the real figure currently sits at around 24,000. That’s three times more than the facility’s capacity.
Image: Greenpeace Australia Pacific
The main culprit? Beef production.
Beef production continues to drive Australia’s deforestation crisis.
From 2016 to 2020, 90% of bushland destruction in NSW and Queensland was directly linked to beef production.
Housing development, forestry, and energy projects do play a part in Australia’s deforestation levels, but comparative to the beef industry, their impact is minimal – just 1% of deforestation that occurs in NSW and Queensland is linked to these projects.
The Way Forward
Existing nature laws in Australia are weak, not enforced, and are failing our native wildlife. Our government must urgently step up and commit to ending Australia’s deforestation and extinction crises.
“The devastating scale of animal deaths and injuries outlined in the report demands urgent action. Alongside our colleagues at RSPCA Queensland, we’re calling for a stronger national nature law that will halt nature destruction and end the extinction crisis in Australia.”
– Gemma Plesman, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific
Join the campaign to get strong nature laws protecting nature and wildlife by signing our petition to the Australian government now.
Energy bills in the UK have continued to soar in 2026, with intense debate raging about how to bring them down.
In October 2026, the cap on household energy bills reached its highest level in three years, rising by £60 amid high gas prices driven by the Iran war.
The cap is forecast to jump by as much as another quarter in January 2027, pushing annual energy bills towards £2,200.
Energy bills have not been that high since 2022 when, in the fallout of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UK government spent more than £60bn on supporting consumers through the crisis.
While expensive gas is behind the lion’s share of the rise in bills since 2020, policy costs and investment in the gas and electricity grids are also putting some pressure on prices.
This has sparked conflicting calls to continue the clean-energy transition to get off the “fossil-fuel rollercoaster”, to move more slowly – or to abandon climate goals in favour of more gas.
Below, Carbon Brief looks at the real drivers of high energy bills in the UK, what has been done to address them to date and what options are available to cut them going forward.
These include taking more policy costs off electricity bills, boosting flexibility or shifting to more efficient technologies with lower running costs, such as heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs).
What is driving high energy bills?
In October 2026, UK household energy bills reached their highest levels since 2022, with the price cap for typical homes hitting £1,723 per year, up 47% in real terms since October 2020.
Industrial energy users also face high costs, particularly for their electricity.
For households, another sharp increase is now all but guaranteed under the price cap for January 2027, which is forecast to rise by around 25% from current levels.
Wholesale costs for electricity and gas make up 44% of the current cap of £1,723 per year, according to Carbon Brief analysis of figures from thinktank Nesta, shown in the figure below.
The wholesale cost of both electricity and gas is tied to gas prices, due to the marginal pricing system used in power markets in the UK and most other countries.
Network charges make up a further 24% of bills and operating costs are another 17%, whereas policy costs only account for 7% of the total.
There has been increasing interest in the so-called “non-commodity costs” – those not related to wholesale energy – that now make up a significant portion of bills, as shown in the figure above.
Yet while these costs have been increasing – particularly those related to investing in energy networks – they are not the reason why energy bills have soared once again in recent months.
Indeed, Nesta analysis recently published by Carbon Brief shows that, contrary to widespread UK media and political narratives, a surge in wholesale costs driven by expensive gas is responsible for more than 80% of the rise in dual-fuel household energy bills since 2020, as shown below.
The second-largest driver of the rise in costs since 2020 is due to the cost of operating, maintaining and expanding gas and electricity networks, as shown in the figure above.
At the end of 2025, energy regulator Ofgem approved £29bn of upfront investment into the national gas and electricity grids, as well as the gas distribution network that connects to homes and businesses. This is part of a wider package of up to around £90bn of investment out to 2031.
As a result of these investment plans, network charges are expected to increase by around 50% between 2025 and 2030, from £222 a year to £330 for a typical dual-fuel household.
(This figure covers gas and electricity transmission and gas distribution, but not electricity distribution. A further package of increased investment in the electricity distribution network, for the period from 2028-2033, is due to be approved by Ofgem by the end of 2027.)