The Murray Darling Basin

The soil of Australia is thin and fragile and our top environmental problem is erosion, together with loss of species because of the stripping of the land of trees and vegetation.

In the Murray Darling Basin up to 15 Billion trees have been chopped down. In the Bega district on the South Coast, most of the forested habitat in the valleys has been stripped. Many native animals there are now classified as rare. Four are considered to be in danger of extinction and at least six species have become locally extinct. In the Sydney region less than 1 per cent of the original blue gum high forest remains and less than 0.5 per cent of the turpentine-ironbark forest. In Western Sydney bushland remnants are increasingly threatened by the expansion of suburban areas.

Up to 2000 birds permanently lose their habitat for every 100 hectares of woodland cleared. Clearing mallee scrub for wheat kills more than 85 per cent of the reptiles - that's more than 200 reptiles per hectare.

Songbird species are down 40% because of habitat loss. Half the land in Australia is degraded, so birds that nest on the ground are most affected.

A 24-year study of Queensland lorikeets stretching from late 70s to early 90s found a direct relationship between the amount of land cleared and the annual decline in number of Lorikeets. This was caused by lack of hollows in which to nest and less flowering trees on which to feed.

STRIPPING THE LAND FOR AGRICULTURE

Agriculture in Australia produces a third of the country's greenhouse gases. All the studies agree - Agriculture is killing the land, the native vegetation and the animals. Farming as practised now must stop, before the damage is irreversible.

A 1995 report from the Biodiversity Unit of the Federal Department of the Environment said that in the ten years 1983 to 1993, bushland was stripped from the land for farming at the rate of 500,000 hectares per year, or two rugby pitches a minute. In 1990 alone 650,000 hectares were cleared. The Australian Conservation Foundation in a statement last week, said the amount put aside for re-vegetating the land, should be at least equal to the defence budget.. The threat to our land is NOW.

The 1995 Report "Native Vegetation Clearance Habitat Loss and Biodiversity Decline" produced some equally alarming figures.