An area the size of Samoa was partially or fully deforested in Queensland in one year despite stricter land-clearing laws being passed, raising concerns about rapid biodiversity loss.
About 418,656 hectares of woody vegetation, an area the size of the Polynesian island, was fully or partially cleared in 2019/20, according to the latest government report released on Friday.
Resources Minister Scott Stewart says that's a fall of almost 40 per cent from the 680,688ha cleared in 208/19, and due to new vegetation laws passed in 2017.
"We will continue to work with industry and the community to ensure land clearing continues to reduce," he said in a statement.
"Clearing in remnant and high-value regrowth vegetation regulated areas reduced more than 50 per cent compared to the previous year."
About 42,575ha of new regrowth has also been mapped in the report, which was welcomed by farming lobby AgForce, calling it an "undeniably good story" for landholders.
"Landowners do indeed care for agricultural lands," AgForce general president Georgie Somerset said in a statement.
"The findings are testament to the hard work of landowners, who have made great efforts with sustainable land management during particularly challenging times and tough drought conditions."
However, environmental groups said the report showed Queensland was still a global deforestation hotspot, two years after new laws were passed to end the practice.
The Wilderness Society said almost three-quarters of the vegetation clearance was to make way for cattle pasture and around half occurred in Great Barrier Reef catchments, which increased the chance of erosion and sediment-laden runoff that could kill coral.
The group's Queensland manager Hannah Schuch also criticised the government for not monitoring deforestation in real-time and releasing its report on Friday afternoon.
"Australia is a deforestation hotspot and it's clear that Queensland, sadly, is driving the destruction, putting threatened species on a fast track to extinction," she said in a statement.
"Bulldozing Queensland's forests and bushlands kills koalas, trashes rivers, smothers the Great Barrier Reef and contributes to dangerous climate change."
The Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) said the land-clearing laws were clearly flawed with huge areas being deforested annually, putting the state's 1000 threatened species at risk.
"Loopholes and lack of enforcement by the Queensland government allow broadscale land clearing to continue," QCC campaigner Natalie Frost told AAP.
"The premier must honour her promise to the Queensland people and end this out-of-control deforestation.
"We are facing a biodiversity crisis and need to urgently protect and restore nature, sadly the Queensland government is not doing enough to thwart extinctions."
The World Wide Fund for Nature also questioned the value of reporting regrowth in the annual report, as it didn't necessarily have the same value as a native species habitat in recently deforested areas such as old-growth forests.
"That's based on data that gives scrubby regrowth the same value as forest hundreds of years old. Tree hollows, essential for many Australian species, can take over 200 years to form, the clearing of these habitats must stop," WWF project manager Vanessa Keogh said.
