- Formal negotiations
- Finance
- Global review
- Global report
- Digital sequence information
- Harmful subsidies
- Marine biodiversity
- Planning, monitoring, reporting and review
- Article 8(j) implementation
- Biodiversity and climate change
- Links with other bodies
- Around the COP
- Armenian presidency
- Protests
- Lobbying and influence
- Carbon and biodiversity markets
Deforestation in Australia Summary
Most deforestation is for beef pasture development and is concentrated in central and south central Queensland and north central NSW in the Brigalow Belt and Mulga Lands bioregions. Mining, infrastructure, and urban development combined account for only 1%.
However, unlike in rural areas, the harm to animals is ongoing particularly in urban and peri-urban environments where past clearing has resulted in native bushland fragments embedded in a landscape with multiple hazards for wildlife. Animals in fragmented landscapes face inadequate shelter, nesting and food resources, exposure to the elements causing dehydration and starvation, as well as increased human wildlife conflict, domestic cat and dog attacks, collisions with powerlines, structures or vehicles on busy roads and stress-induced diseases.
Deforestation in Qld and NSW has resulted in an average of 100 million animals within the clearing footprint. This includes 1.9 to 4.5 million mammals, 7.4 to 9.3 million birds and over 96 million reptiles of all sizes being injured, killed, or displaced every year on average.
This includes approximately 1,200 Koalas a year on average. Koalas were listed as endangered in 2022 after suffering a rapid decline in Qld and NSW in recent decades due to deforestation, habitat fragmentation and the ongoing death and injury that results from fragmentation particularly in urban and peri-urban environments.
In Queensland, on average 24,000 native animals every year are recorded by RSPCA Qld as being rescued or admitted into care, including over 500 koalas. Most admissions fall in the densely populated southeast of the state where wildlife hospitals are concentrated, but which is no longer where most deforestation happens. Numbers injured or killed directly due to deforestation in southeast Queensland are small. The bulk of rescues are the legacy of past deforestation resulting in fragmentation of native bushland in the urban and peri-urban environment.
Little has improved for wild animals since our last report on this crisis in 2017. Despite some reforms to the Vegetation Management Act in Queensland in 2018, laws and policies in both states have not greatly changed and still allow very large areas of bushland habitat for wildlife to be destroyed every year, likely harming, injuring, and killing millions of native animals every year.
Deforestation Legislative changes required
Reducing the toll of suffering and death that results from habitat destruction and fragmentation requires major changes in policy:
- To prohibit or prevent most bushland habitat destruction, especially in areas that remain largely unfragmented;
- To support research to better quantify and understand the impacts of deforestation on forest dependent wildlife, including directly and indirectly impacted individuals;
- To mitigate welfare impacts of any bushland destruction that is allowed through pre-clearing surveys and rehoming of displaced animals;
- To ensure destroyed habitat areas are replaced or offset by restored habitat of the same type and quality;
- To take steps in already developed areas to reduce the ongoing hazards to wildlife from human activities by, for example, establishing wildlife corridors between fragmented areas of previously intact habitat, wildlife bridges over roadways, and stronger controls over human activities within wild habitats;
- To enhance public education about the impacts of deforestation on native animal welfare; and
- To support collaborations between veterinarians, wildlife rescue and conservation organisations, focussing on areas with heavy current deforestation rates or high potential future deforestation risk.
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/greenpeace-reports/deforestation-animal-welfare-crisis/
Prepared by a coalition of nine Western Australian union, industry, conservation, and community organisations—including UnionsWA, the Conservation Council WA, and the Smart Energy Council—the WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan provides a practical roadmap to transform Western Australia into a clean energy powerhouse while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
Western Australia stands at a pivotal crossroads: lead the global clean energy economy or watch investment, future industries, and secure jobs go elsewhere. The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan outlines a transformative blueprint to harness the state’s world-class solar and wind resources. Discover how legislated renewable targets, green iron manufacturing, and a dedicated regional training strategy can generate tens of thousands of local jobs, lower household bills, and build a resilient, net-zero future for all Western Australians.
WA needs a clear and forward-thinking plan if it is going to become a competitive renewable energy powerhouse and maintain its economic strength through the energy transition.
“Western Australians know a faster renewable energy transition will lower their household expenses and prevent harmful climate pollution. But the community also needs clear direction to ensure this transition will create jobs, lower costs and not cause undue environmental harm.
“Here, sectors representing a broad range of interests have laid the groundwork for those outcomes, clearly outlining what is needed to create a future for WA that is good for the environment, for the climate, for workers and for the economy.
Summary
The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan sets out a strategic roadmap to position Western Australia as a global clean energy superpower while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
The report establishes three overarching goals:
- Creating local employment.
- Maintaining industrial competitiveness.
- Lowering household energy costs
To realize this vision, the framework details actionable measures to follow on from the recent WA Government announcement of a 75% Renewable Energy Target by 2031 for the South West Interconnected System. This includes developing a statewide Renewable Energy Target, coordinating statewide workforce and training pipelines, strategically planning regional infrastructure to safeguard high-value biodiversity and cultural heritage, and ensuring equitable benefit-sharing through household electrification incentives and First Nations equity partnerships. Ultimately, the plan highlights that establishing clear policy and regulatory certainty will unlock lower energy bills, boost power reliability, and secure the state’s global competitiveness in emerging green commodity export markets.
Key Findings
- Statewide Renewable Energy Target and Emissions Reduction Targets: The report calls for a statewide RET and 1.5°C aligned emission reduction targets to remove policy risk, lower capital costs, and attract clean energy investment.
- Transformative Job Creation: Accelerating the transition offers massive employment prospects, including up to 8,800 solar and battery jobs by 2050, as well as 24,000 ongoing and 11,000 construction jobs in a commercial green iron industry.
- Industrial Electrification & Competitiveness: Requiring large gas users to adopt binding electrification timetables and providing concessional financing will protect existing energy-intensive manufacturers from rising energy costs and impending domestic gas shortfalls.
- Green Commodity Export Leadership: Western Australia can build new export markets in green iron, green ammonia, and offshore oil/gas decommissioning by constructing shared common-user infrastructure and setting dedicated Green Commodity Export Targets.
- Coordinated Workforce & Training Pipeline: To address critical skill shortages the plan recommends establishing a WA Clean Energy Jobs Plan 2050, three regional training hubs, and dedicated pathways for female and under-represented apprentices.
- Environmental Safeguards & Community Benefits: Fast-tracked development must be paired with State Planning Policies that avoid high-biodiversity and cultural heritage lands, mandate new data centres to run on additional renewable power, and deliver household electrification rebates and First Nations equity partnerships.
What you can do
WA has an opportunity to lead on sustainable, clean energy and associated industries. You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
Countries have completed the first “global review” of their progress towards reversing nature loss by 2030 at the COP17 biodiversity talks in Yerevan, Armenia.
The review “notes with deep concern” that, unless action is “rapidly accelerated”, the goal to reverse nature loss and meet a set of 23 targets by 2030 “will not be achieved”.
It “urges” countries to accelerate action, including by “increased ambition in addressing the gaps”.
Much of the discussions in Yerevan focused on how to raise the necessary funds to help developing countries protect nature.
Some major economies pushed to expand the range of nations that are expected to provide finance, with countries agreeing at the end of the two weeks of talks that non-donors that want to contribute can “signal interest” before COP18.
This came after developed countries failed to meet a target to significantly ramp up nature finance over the last few years.
It also came as a landmark fund agreed at COP16 in Colombia to pay communities for the genetic resources derived from nature stands nearly empty two years on.
The Yerevan talks marked the halfway point of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature” first made in 2022 and due to be achieved by 2030.
During the nearly 12-hour-long final plenary, countries voted for Quito, Ecuador, to host the COP18 nature talks, which will be held in 2028.
Countries managed to sign off on all the major negotiation texts, marking a stark contrast to COP16, which ran so far over time that the Colombian presidency lost “quorum”, forcing talks to resume in Rome months later.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed analysis of all of the key outcomes from COP17.