Melbourne’s green spaces are being lost in rush to build more housing

Melbourne has lost almost 2000 hectares of tree cover in the past five years as suburban backyards are cleared for new housing.

Members of the Upfield Urban Forest group: Anna Sinn,
Greta and Esme Holroyd, Tamar Hopkins and Gerard Morel.
 They are photographed in the Urban Forest near Brunswick station. 

The amount of urban forest that was removed between 2014 and 2018 is roughly equal in size to Reservoir, Melbourne’s largest suburb by area.

The eastern suburbs, long celebrated for their leafiness, experienced the greatest loss of greenery in that time, accounting for more than two-thirds of Melbourne's total tree canopy loss, researchers at RMIT University found.

By contrast, the western suburbs have enjoyed a small recent recovery in green growth, although this has been from a much lower base and has mostly occurred on public land.

Read the story from The Age by Adam Carey - “Melbourne’s green spaces are being lost in rush to build more housing.”

How Fake Meat Could Save the Planet

Despite the growing attention on the environmental impact of our diet, a recent Gallup Poll indicates that the number of Americans who identify as vegetarians has remained fixed at about 5 percent since 2012. Globally, per capita meat and seafood consumption has been increasing steadily, driven largely by growth in the developing world. More meat means more land that must be cleared to support more livestock, driving wild species to extinction. Moral suasion and appeals to the environment will only go so far — if we’re going to eat to save the planet, consumers will need plant-based options that fit into their current diets, not the other way around.

What we eat matters to the planet. Meat and dairy production are major contributors to climate change — a 2013 study by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that livestock were responsible for more than 14 percent of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions, and more recent research has found even higher numbers. Changing your diet can make a difference — a study published last year by the University of Oxford found that plant-based diets could reduce food’s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 73 percent.

Read the story from One Zero by Kim Thomas - “How Fake Meat Could Save the Planet.”

Farmers to be paid to keep trees on land in pilot scheme to cut carbon

Farmers will be offered a cash payment to prevent trees and shrubs being cleared from their land in a $30 million federal government scheme to show action is being taken on climate change.

Agriculture and Water Resources
Minister David Littleproud.

Food producers will also gain from a "biodiversity bonus" that will create a new seal of approval for supermarket produce that comes from farmers who support revegetation on their land.

The move comes as the Morrison government tries to assure voters it has policies to respond to climate change while at the same time appeasing Nationals MPs who want federal subsidies for coal-fired power stations.

Read the story from The Age by David Crowe -“Farmers to be paid to keep trees on land in pilot scheme to cut carbon.”

Queensland farmers suspected to have defied tree clearing controls in 'deforestation frenzy’

Queensland farmers are suspected of having defied rare federal government intervention and cleared a large swath of land without commonwealth approval, according to conservationists.

Cleared land on the property.

The native vegetation was in a reef catchment, meaning the clearing could worsen pollution on the Great Barrier Reef. Government-commissioned studies show it provided habitat to several threatened species.

Queensland is experiencing a boom in tree clearing – rates jumped 33% in 2016, in a region that is already considered the only “global deforestation hotspot” in the developed world. About 400,000 hectares were cleared in 2015-16, meaning Queensland now has two-thirds the annual rate of deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon.

Read Michael Slezak’s story on The Guardian - “Queensland farmers suspected to have defied tree clearing controls in 'deforestation frenzy’.”