Animal agriculture drives 77% of deforestation in Australia.

More than three-quarters of nationwide land clearing is for farming livestock animals.

‘Most forest land converted in Australia is used for cattle grazing…’ – Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.¹

Australia is the only developed nation in the world to be designated among the global “deforestation fronts” by the WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature.² Widespread land clearing threatens over a thousand native species³ and is a large emitter of greenhouse gases.⁴ However, few people are aware of what drives deforestation in this country: animal agriculture. Farming animals for food and fibre is responsible for more than three-quarters (77%) of land clearing nationwide (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Land clearing by activity in Australia (2013–2018).

Official figures covering 2013 to 2018 available in Australia’s National Inventory Report⁵ and the Australian Greenhouse Emissions Information System⁶ reveal that each year an average of 337 thousand hectares of forest land — mostly native vegetation — were cleared to graze and intensively rear livestock (see Table 1).⁷ That amounts to 77% of the total land cleared in this period. Only 4% of land clearing took place to grow crops by comparison.⁸ All ‘other’ purposes combined, from plantations to mining to residential infrastructure, work out to 19%.⁹

Table 1. Land clearing by activity in Australia (2013–2018).

Notes:

[1] Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. (2020). National Inventory Report 2018: Volume 2. https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/nga-national-inventory-report-2018-volume-2.pdf. See p. 10.

[2] Cox, L. (2021, 13 January). Australia the only developed nation on world list of deforestation hotspots. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/13/australia-the-only-developed-nation-on-world-list-of-deforestation-hotspots

[3] WWF — World Wide Fund for Nature and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). 2015. ‘Saving Forests at Risk’. In WWF Living Forests Report, eds. Rod Taylor. Gland, Switzerland: WWF –World Wide Fund for Nature. https://c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/publications/793/files/original/Report.pdf?1430147305. See pp. 33–34.

[4] Australian Government Climate Change Authority. (2018). Reaping the Rewards: Improving farm profitability, reducing emissions and conserving natural capital. https://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-06/2018%20Reaping%20the%20Rewards/Final%20Report%20-%20Reaping%20the%20Rewards.pdf. See p. 12.

[5] Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. (2020). National Inventory Report 2018: Volume 2. https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/nga-national-inventory-report-2018-volume-2.pdf. See pp. 275–276, table 6.L.2.

[6] Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. (2021). Activity Table 1990–2018 — LULUCF [Datafile and codebook]. Australian Greenhouse Emissions Information System. https://ageis.climatechange.gov.au/QueryAppendixTable.aspx. See Table 2.

[7] Land clearing for ‘livestock’ covers primary conversion and re-clearing for the following activities: grazing native vegetation, grazing modified pastures, grazing irrigated modified pastures, and intensive animal production.

[8] Land clearing for ‘crops’ covers primary conversion and re-clearing for the following activities: cropping, perennial horticulture, seasonal horticulture, production from irrigated agriculture and plantations, irrigated cropping, irrigated perennial horticulture, irrigated seasonal horticulture, and intensive horticulture.

[9] Land clearing for ‘other’ purposes covers primary conversion and re-clearing for all activities listed in the activity table that are not included in the ‘livestock’ and ‘crops’ categories detailed in notes [7] and [8].

Originally published at https://vstats.substack.com.