Tasmania's former forests regulator says penalties for unapproved land clearing are often just seen as "the cost of doing business" for private landowners.
Environmental experts say the lack of a Tasmanian State of the Environment report – not completed since 2009 – could also mean the state has little comprehensive knowledge of the scale of native forest loss per year.
The Forest Practices Authority (FPA) issued $657,000 in fines to landowners in the last financial year — a 40 per cent increase — with 180 hectares cleared without approval.
This could be an underestimate of the scale of illegal clearing, as it relies upon the FPA being informed of an issue, and some satellite imagery, before it investigates.
It also does not include fines issued by councils, such as a penalty for the unapproved clearing of trees at a property on Bruny Island.
Peter Volker retired as Tasmania's chief forest practices officer last year.
He said a substantial amount of the authority's resources were used in investigating reports of unapproved land clearing.
"People these days know that clearing trees is going to be under some kind of regulatory approval process, so I find it a little bit disingenuous if people say, 'oh I didn't know I wasn't allowed to do it'," he said.
"For some people, a $10 fine is a huge amount of money. For other people, a $100,000 fine is just the cost of doing business."
The largest fines issued in Tasmania in the last financial year were $86,000, $75,000 and $37,500, although the FPA has stopped publicly identifying offenders, citing the state's personal information laws.
It is now considering using more rehabilitation orders in addition to fines.
But Dr Volker said it was not as easy as it sounded.
"The FPA has tried to use rehabilitation orders. The experience was mixed," he said.
"Some landowners took it quite seriously and have done a great job, but where landowners have difficulty, they don't have the knowledge, then it becomes quite labour-intensive for them to do the work, and then for the FPA to oversee it.
"And then if the rehabilitation fails for whatever reason, do you start again? That's the difficulty with it."
Other states cracking down
While NSW has increased penalties for illegal land clearing, and Queensland has improved its monitoring, Tasmania continues to lag behind.
Ian Cresswell, who co-wrote the Commonwealth State of the Environment report in 2021, said it was difficult to know the scale of the problem in Tasmania, due to a lack of effective monitoring.
"In Tasmania, we don't really have a good handle on land clearing," he said.
"Over the decade between 2010 and 2019, in Tasmania, it's estimated that over 14,000 hectares of forest and woodland was cleared. Most of that was not done under licence.
"In several states, they've significantly increased penalties. NSW has significantly increased penalties for clearing in recent years. Tasmania, the penalties haven't changed much in a long time."
The Commonwealth report relied upon satellite analysis under Australia's national greenhouse gas accounting system, highlighting gaps between the known land clearing in Tasmania and the total biomass loss.
Dr Cresswell said Australia ranked poorly internationally in preventing illegal native forest clearing, and Tasmania was among the worst states.
"People think of the clearing of the Amazon as being the worst sort of clearing you can have in the world, actually Australia ranks worse," he said.
"One study showed that in terms of substantial clearing of important habitat, Tasmania ranked badly along with several other jurisdictions.
"It was in the midlands, the north-west and the north-east where we saw significant amounts of clearing of nationally important habitats, that was done without authorisation under the EPBC Act."
The FPA estimates a 158,129-hectare – or 4.9 per cent – cumulative loss of native forest in Tasmania between 1996 and 2022.
Environmental Defenders Office wants 'clear deterrent'
Environment Defenders Office Tasmania managing lawyer Claire Bookless said land rehabilitation orders were unlikely to be the most effective way of addressing the issue.
"In the case of land clearing, prevention is far better than the cure," she said.
"It's impossible to get back the biodiversity that's lost once a habitat has been cleared, and it's really difficult to enforce remediation orders.
"Where a person has been found guilty of unlawful clearing, it's important that there are other mechanisms to provide a very clear deterrent from that kind of behaviour again in the future.
"That might look like enforcement orders, requiring them to remediate, but it also might be that they have to publish or give public notice of the offence that they've committed."
The Tasmanian government has promised to provide a State of the Environment report in 2024. Other states include native forest loss monitoring as part of this report.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff said he would seek advice on whether rehabilitation orders could act as a greater deterrent for landholders, but encouraged them to act lawfully.
"My message is, to all landholders, is you must comply with the laws," he said.
"And that's very important, and that's the reason why the laws are in place."
