The World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef is a global icon and irreplaceable to Australians. It contributes $9 billion annually to our economy and supports 77,000 tourism jobs.
Yet hundreds of thousands of trees are being cleared each year in Reef catchments, driving soil erosion and worsening water pollution that smothers coral and seagrass, harming marine life that depends upon it.
Nearly half of all tree clearing in Queensland happens in Great Barrier Reef catchments. This large-scale destruction occurs in highly sensitive areas prone to erosion, such as along creeks and rivers, and on degraded land, much of it on land exempt from Queensland’s vegetation laws.
Almost 700,000 hectares of native bushland were cleared across Queensland’s Reef catchments in the four years after the Queensland Government strengthened its vegetation laws in 2018. That’s an area almost three times the size of the ACT!
Despite repeated warnings from the World Heritage Committee to stop land clearing, little has changed.
To protect the Great Barrier Reef and keep it off the World Heritage in Danger list, the government must act boldly to close the loopholes driving deforestation.
Call on your local representative Matt Smith to demand strong federal nature law reforms, including closing deforestation loopholes and ensuring that strong national standards protect the Reef from land-based pollution and climate change.