Agricultural Land Clearing: A Report on Environmental Consequences

This report investigates the environmental consequences of land clearing for agriculture, focusing on deforestation rates in Queensland, Australia, and its impact on biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions. It highlights the drivers of deforestation, including subsistence and commercial farming, and reviews the Vegetation Management Act 1999. The report assesses the strengths and weaknesses of land clearing, emphasizing habitat destruction and the emission of greenhouse gases. Opportunities for conservation and sustainable farming practices are explored, along with the threats of species extinction and water salinity. The report concludes with recommendations for preserving indigenous species and promoting education and conservation efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of agricultural land clearing. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments for students.

CLEARING LAND FOR AGRICULTURE (AGRICULTURAL
CLEARING )

Table of Contents
AUTHOR YEAR TITLE LEGISLATIO N
Noel. D. Preece
Penny Van Osterzee
2017 Australia is a global
top ten deforester
and Queensland is
leading the way
Vegetation
management act
1999
Hugh Finn 2017 Land clearing isn't
just about trees- its
an animal welfare
issue too
State and territory
parliaments
James Watsom
Eve McDonald-
Madden
Jmaes Allan
Kenda;ll Jones
Moreno Di Marco
Richard Fuller
2017 Half the world s
ecosystem at risk
from habitat loss
and Australia one of
the worst
Convention of
biological diversity
Joshua Robertson 2017 Alarming rise in
Queensland tree
Wildness society
Queensland

Introduction of problem
• 13% of Green house gas emission is caused by land
clearing process.
• Birds between 1000 and 2000 die for every 100
hectares of land cleared reason being starvation and
stress due to the change of environment.
• The following percentages show how the heritage of
Australia has been affected by land clearing :- 23%
mammals, 9% fresh water fish, 5% on plants and 16%
on amphibians . If the land clearing goes on then the
species are endangered to extinction(Finn ,2017).

Table of contents
AUTHOR YEAR TITLE LEGISLATION
Howkins, M.,
Wilson, K., Rhodes,
J., Watson, J.,
Possingham, H., &
McAlpine, C. et al.
2016 Queensland land
clearing is
undermining
australia’s
environmemntal
progress.
Parliament

Introduction of problem cont
The rate of deforestation in Queensland (Sharwood,2017)

Background
• The land has been highly affected human activities
from activities like deforestation, Urbanization or
farming .
• The loss of habitat has been higher than 53 times since
1900
• Angola, Congo, Papua New Guinea and South East
Asia are among the regions which are highly affected
by deforestation. It is important to protect the
environment but corruption is very high.

Background Cont
(watson et al., 2016)

Background cont
• 48% of subsistence farming is responsible for deforestation,
32% is from commercial agriculture and 14% is from logging
• The percentage of tropical rain forest has decreased by 50%
over the last 50 years . The total land coverage has decreased
from14% to 6% between 1960 to 1990 and 20% of tropical
rain forest were destroyed .

Background cont
Forest cleared by bulldozers (D Preece and Van Oosterzee, 2017)

Literature review
• Australia has been ranked among top ten
countries with high deforestation rate
• Vegetation Management act 1999 was put in
place at around this helped in the reduction of
the loss of woodlands.
• 80% of species living in woodland and forest
in Queensland is threatened(Robertson, 2017).

Literature Review
• Animals habitat is affected and the ones that
survive are left in a hostile environment which
is unsuitable for their survival.

Strengths
• Allows good lighting to reach crops planted since
some trees are so leafy.
• The farmers are able to harvest food which
allows sustainability of the population of
Australia
• Allows urbanization because of the constant
increase in population
• Farmers are able to carry out subsistence and
commercial agriculture