Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

• The Northern Territory government’s plan to turn 100,000 hectares over to large-scale crops such as cotton and its support for onshore gas extraction is threatening the world’s largest intact tropical savanna.
• As wildlife ecologists and conservation scientists, we are deeply concerned about plans announced last month that would intensify land clearing.

Land clearing leaves wildlife homeless

• Land clearing leads to habitat loss, erosion and pollution of waterways.
• Agriculture, including livestock grazing (pastoralism), is by far the greatest driver of land clearing in northern Australia.
• The land subject to clearing approvals in the NT increased by 300% between 2018 and 2021.

Weak laws afford limited protection

• Our national environmental protection law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, relies on self-referral of development activities for assessment.
• This means the potential impacts on threatened species and other natural values supposedly protected by national environmental laws, are never assessed by experts.
• The Pastoral Land Board approves land clearing across pastoral leases (which cover more than 45% of the territory’s land area).
• On one occasion the proponent referred an application to the NT Environment Protection Agency.

Fuelling fires and biodiversity loss

• The push to extract gas from the Beetaloo Basin represents another major threat to the region.
• The export of fracked gas from Beetaloo will be facilitated by the Middle Arm Sustainable Development precinct.

A better future for Australia’s tropical savannas

To protect Australia’s tropical savannas from uncontrolled land clearing and gas extraction, we need:

Avoid repeating past mistakes

• Against a backdrop of climate change, biodiversity decline and extinction crises, any further development of the north must be subject to rigorous risk-assessment and appropriate environmental protections.
• We simply can’t afford to risk repeating mistakes already inflicted on much of southern Australia.
• He is a member of the Australian Government's Threatened Species Scientific Committee, and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy's Scientific Advisory Network.