Australian Land Clearing

Land clearing is the removal of native vegetation and deforestation in Australia, including destruction of native bushlands, woodlands, savannah , forests and native grasslands for replacement with agricultural, urban and other land uses. Australia has been responsible for large amounts of deforestation and land clearing since the European settlement in the late 18 century. Australia has lost nearly 40% of all its forest despite being around 75% of Australia being inhospitable deserts or arid lands, this high percentage of loss has had many effects on the Australian environment. However despite society's view of land clearing being mainly negative there are some positives to land clearing such as providing economic benefits including new …show more content…
Emissions from tree clearing have been estimated to be 673 to 825 Mt co2e for the next 15 years which is equivalent to 3-4 coal power plants running for the same time period. In 1980 the clearing of vegetation contributed 28 million tonnes of carbon contributing 22% to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions that year. Some of the effects this has had on the Australian environment is the increase of temperature ( approx 1.0c) with the most rapid warming occurring in east australia since the 1950’s. Not are the emissions extremely detrimental to the environment but can also affect the quality of the air that we breath and live in as the clearing of vegetation has affected the amount of carbon dioxide being filtered out of out air through the process undergone by plants, photosynthesis. Another detriment of land clearing is the effect that it has on the ecosystem, as after land clearing the remaining vegetation is extremely fragmented to the point where many plant species are close to extinction or are already extinct. From the time of the European Settlement in the 18th century to now it is estimated that around 50% of the forests existing in Australia have been logged( clearing for