Historic trial: farmer fined $408,000 for illegal landclearing

Bulldozed: waterbird breeding habitat. Photo: The Wilderness Society collection

Nearly two years ago, one of the country’s most significant waterbird breeding habitats in the Gwydir River floodplain was recklessly bulldozed.

Thanks to the efforts of The Wilderness Society in investigating and publicising the clearing and urging the authorities to act, the landowner was prosecuted and this month, the Land and Environment Court of NSW imposed a fine of $408,000 on two counts of breaching the NSW Native Vegetation Act. This is one of the first successful prosecutions under the 2003 legislation and the largest fine imposed to date.

This is a historic win for NSW’s environment. Thank you to those who took action, wrote a letter or participated in our cyberactions. Without these, the clearing would not have been brought to court.

The Wilderness Society welcomed the verdict: “This case sends an important message that this type of environmental vandalism will no longer be tolerated in NSW” said Cecile van der Burgh of The Wilderness Society.

“We congratulate the Department of Environment and Climate Change on this successful prosecution and on the other cases that are now feeding through the court system.”

However, thousands of birds lost their breeding sites forever. The Yarrol property was part of the Gwydir wetlands, one of the largest inland wetlands of NSW, which has declined by 90% in recent decades. The site was a rookery for straw-necked Ibis, night herons, royal spoonbills and various rare duck species and located adjacent to an internationally listed Ramsar site.

Currently, there is an order in place preventing the land from being farmed and The Wilderness Society will be doing all it can to ensure that this order remains in place so the vegetation can recover.

“The offence was self evidently done for the purpose of making more land available for agriculture”, Justice Lloyd found in decision handed down in the Land and Environment Court this month.

“The penalty should properly reflect the deliberate nature of the offence, which was committed despite the express instructions given to the landholder that native tress were not to be cleared.”

“The clearing was carried out as part of the agricultural activities on the land and in that sense the offence was part of a commercial operation – that is, it was motivated by commercial considerations.”

The Wilderness Society remains seriously concerned about broadscale landclearing in NSW.

Landclearing creates greenhouse pollution, causes salinity, destroys rivers and kills wildlife. It remains a massive problem in NSW with the Department of Environment still receiving more than 500 complaints from the public every year.

NSW still doesn’t have the systems in place to prevent landclearing or to properly measure its extent, despite repeated promises made by the NSW Government. This is concerning, not just because devastating impacts on our wildlife and landscape health, but also because landclearing creates a large share of Australia’s greenhouse emissions.