Queensland could offer national park protections to private landowners
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The Queensland Government is planning to create a new category of environmental protection for private land, that would allow landowners the chance to have equal environmental protection to national parks.
Key points:
- Special wildlife reserves would have environmental protections similar to national parks
- Land will need to meet high biodiversity standards
- New category would guard against mining and coal seam gas
State Environment Minister Steven Miles will announce the plan at the state ALP conference on the Gold Coast tomorrow.
"This means that for the first time, private landholders, philanthropists, land trusts, those kind of things will be able to buy and protect land and put a level of protection over that's much like a national park," Steven Miles said.
But he said the new category would not be imposed on land owners.
"This is entirely voluntary. They'll need to nominate and the process will be very strict as well so it will need to meet the biodiversity standards needed for me to gazette a national park," he said.
Queensland already has nature refuges, which are pockets of private land left for the purpose of conserving wildlife.
Dr Miles said many of those are on land owned by farmers or graziers, but the new category would allow an even higher level of protection and even guard against mining and coal seam gas.
"We haven't been able to apply the same level of protection to a nature refuge as we have on a national park. So this is a chance to have that top tier national park-level protection," he says.
Dr Miles said the special wildlife reserves would also be ideal for tourism.
"What we expect to see on these special reserves is new eco-tourism, new multi-day walks, new accommodation; ways of enjoying the bush.
"This is a great opportunity for people who want to really practically help us conserve Queensland and protect habitat for our endangered wildlife," Dr Miles said.
Groups like the Queensland Trust For Nature already work with private landholders to conserve land for its environmental value.
The Trust's Nerida Bradley said the proposed new protection category would help conserve koala habitat, cassowary "corridors" and forest.
"These changes recognise that there are really special, precious parts of Queensland that are privately owned lands," Nerida Bradley said.
She added there were large parts of far north Queensland as well as the state's south-west that could qualify as special wildlife reserves.
"There are pockets of precious land all over Queensland and this will open the lid on the parts of precious land that land holders know are there but we mightn't know are there," she said.
Dr Miles plans to put new legislation to Parliament within months.
Topics: state-parliament, environment, land-clearing, land-management, national-parks, conservation, qld
