Australian farmers are chopping down thousands of trees every day in a dramatic protest against laws intended to curb the countryÂ’s fast-rising greenhouse gas emissions. Fed up with government restrictions on the use of their land, farmers began a civil disobedience campaign by cutting down one tree on each property, with a threat to increase the rate of felling each day until the dispute is resolved. By the end of this week more than 128,000 trees could be lost in a single day.
The farmers claim that the nationÂ’s vegetation management laws, under which the clearing of trees has been made an offence, are leaving farmers bankrupt or rendering their farms marginal because trees are taking over open grasslands.
But the Government says that the strict land-clearing laws are necessary to preserve forests to soak up carbon dioxide. Without legislation, the Government claims, vast areas would be cleared to increase acreage of arable land.
Australia has the highest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions and has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, claiming that the climate change pact favours Europe and puts other countries at a disadvantage.
Alistair McRoberts, a farmer in Cobar, New South Wales, who has joined the protest, said: “How would you feel if the Government regulated to turn the third and fourth bedrooms . . . into accommodation for homeless people, and they didn’t pay you any compensation for doing so?
“You still pay the mortgage, you still pay the rent, but that’s just bad luck. We are being hoodwinked to the highest order by the Government and we need to talk about it.”
Brad Bellinger, the chairman of the Australian Beef Association, said that he supported the campaign. On Monday he cut down two trees at his property in New South Wales. He said that, as the fell rate increased, farmers would turn to mechanisation to keep the protest up.
“It’s a matter of complete desperation,” Mr Bellinger said. “By Day 10 we will need bulldozers.”
| Desperate farmers who had campaigned for five years to have the land-clearing laws changed were behind the tree-felling campaign. |
“We are losing tens of thousands of hectares of formerly productive land [because of] these laws,” he said.
He added that one large western Queensland property of 56,000 hectares (138,000 acres) was now overrun by hop bush, a tree-like weed that is protected by law. The property once supported up to 15,000 merino sheep but now has only six head of cattle.
Illegal land clearing has been an acute problem in the large states of New South Wales and Queensland. A WWF study in New South Wales estimated that in the seven years to 2005, 80 million reptiles and 13 million birds had been wiped out because of loss of habitat. About 340,000 hectares of land were cleared in Australia in 2005.
Mr Trueman said that farmers would end their tree-felling only when the environment ministers of each state agreed to meet them and discuss the issues behind the protests.
“Farmers don’t want to be taking this action,” he said. “Farmers need trees on their properties as wind breaks and for soil conservation.”
He said that if land-clearing laws were not relaxed, there would be consequences for urban dwellers in Australia.
“If we don’t get better outcomes for farmers Australia will face food shortages in future. It won’t be because of climate change. It will be because of land-clearing laws.”
John Howard, the Prime Minister, has called for a “New Kyoto” that will not harm the country’s oil, coal and gas exports and bring in developing nations, such as India and China. Australia was part of the original negotiations that set targets for developed nations, but the Government later decided not to ratify the pact.
New figures yesterday showed that the country was almost certain to exceed its greenhouse emissions target of 108 per cent of 1990 levels by 2012 set under Kyoto.
The latest figures show that transport emissions have risen by 4 per cent in the year to May, already pushing national greenhouse gas emissions to 107.9 per cent of 1990 levels.