'Australian beef linked to deforestation could end up part of post-Brexit trade deal', 15 December 2021

"UK consumers could be eating Australian beef linked to deforestation on the back of a new post-Brexit free trade deal signed in the summer, an investigation has found. Satellite analysis has identified an area of deforestation over the past three years that is more than twice the size of Manhattan across farms in Queensland, the largest beef-producing state in Australia. The deforestation includes the habitats of threatened species such as koalas, flying foxes, quolls, and several endangered species of bird and frog.

“Millions of native animals, including Australia’s iconic koala are killed or left homeless when bulldozes destroy their habitat,” said Gemma Plesman, Queensland campaign manager for the Wilderness Society, who carried out the satellite analysis with Unearthed, the investigative arm of Greenpeace. .

Australia is the only country in the developed world in WWF’s list of global deforestation hotspots. About 3% of the forest area in eastern Australia, which includes Queensland, was lost between 2004 and 2017.

Under the terms of the trade deal signed this year, Australia’s beef producers will be given tariff-free access to the UK market. But campaigners argue that beef is the number one driver of the country’s deforestation crisis, and particularly in Queensland.

The Queensland government introduced new laws aimed at curbing deforestation in 2018, yet the analysis says loopholes are allowing clearing to continue. The analysis found more than 13,500 hectares (33,359 acres) of deforestation across 57 properties, with more than half of the cleared area (56%) across 54 beef properties categorised as where habitats for threatened species are “likely to occur”.The loophole identified by Unearthed exempts vast tracts of hectares of forests that have previously been cleared even if they are over 15 years old and supposed to be classified as “high-value regrowth”.

More than two-thirds of the deforestation identified in the analysis is forest or woodland mapped as exempt from all clearing restrictions despite being over 15 years old and having grown back to maturity..."