Contributed by Ugly

I spent many years living in Queensland. During that time, I developed a great appreciation for the beautiful bushland, rainforest, savanna and heathland of the state.

The way things are going, most of it may not be around much longer. If it goes, we will have lost something precious. This saddens me. Future generation will not be able to enjoy, what I have had the privilege to enjoy.

Queensland has now become Australia’s hot spot for land clearing, accounting for 50-65 percent of native forest loss in Australia over the past four decades. Every three minutes, an area an area the size of the Gabba is bulldozed.

That’s a whole lot of disappearing forest.

Clearing rates have now reached crisis point. In 2015-16, the amount of vegetation cleared was equivalent to roughly half that cleared in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest in 2016.

It’s not only the damage to the scenery and biodiversity that’s the problem. The destruction of so much vegetation lowers the planet’s capacity to absorb greenhouse emissions and capacity to generate oxygen. It therefore contributes to global warming.

The science shows that there is a close correlation between land clearing and greenhouse gas pollution.

Changing the law in Queensland will contribute to the need for Australia to make a much greater contribution towards minimising climate warming.

This is the big picture stuff. While is the most important from the view of human survival, our quality of life also depends having a great environment in which to live and travel to. Add that as a species, we are interdependent with nature, and maintaining Australia’s unique plants and animals is also important to us.

One small Queensland act of parliament is not the be all that will save the day. Real change will only come about, when enough people get together and make it happen. Nevertheless, success in bringing this change to this Act can help to nudge this along a little further.