The amount of land has been cleared, right across Australia, from 2010 until the most recently available data in 2018.
Imagine a strip of land 1-kilometre wide, and 15-kilometres long — that’s equivalent to the 1500 hectares cleared in the ACT.
NT This time our 1-kilometre-wide piece of cleared land would stretch 318km, say from Canberra to just beyond Sydney.
If we convert Tasmania’s 66,500 cleared hectares to a 1-kilometre-wide strip of land, it would be 665-kilometres long or the distance from Melbourne to Canberra.
If we go back to our 1-kilometre-wide strip of land, South Australia’s total clearing stretches almost 1,100km from Newcastle to Melbourne.
Victoria This time our 1-kilometre-wide piece of land would stretch from Hobart to the southern suburbs or Brisbane.
WA In total that roughly equals a 1-kilometre-wide piece of land 2,884 kilometres long or from Darwin to Adelaide with change.
NSW That makes our 1-kilometre wide strip of cleared land almost 7,000 kilometres long, roughly stretching from Perth to Cairns via Brisbane.
Qld Our 1km wide strip of cleared land would stretch for a whopping 24,466 kilometres — roughly all the way around Australia twice (minus Tassie).
Australia is a world leader in chopping down trees and wiping out animals: two questionable accomplishments that are tightly connected.
Land clearing and habitat loss are the biggest drivers of animal extinction and in recent years, Australia’s aggressive rate of land clearing has ranked among the developed world’s fastest.
So despite our reputation for untamed wilderness and charismatic wildlife, it’s perhaps no surprise that Australia has one of the highest rates of animal extinction in the world.
We’ve driven 29 mammals to extinction since European colonisation and more than 1,700 others are threatened or endangered. The once abundant koala is rapidly vanishing from New South Wales and Queensland.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-10-08/deforestation-land-clearing-australia-state-by-state/12535438