The federal government says it will deliver "a tough cop on the beat" to enforce Australian law through a national Environment Protection Agency (EPA).
A spokesperson said it was preparing its response to the 2020 Samuel Review into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, which called for the establishment of a national agency to enforce environmental law.
"A key component of the response will be outlining the next steps to deliver a national EPA, a tough cop on the beat, resourced and empowered to enforce Australia's national environmental laws," she said.
It comes as a report from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) found 400,000 hectares in Queensland, where habitat for threatened species was "likely to occur", was cleared between 2018 and 2019 to make way for sheep and cattle grazing.
Meanwhile, farmers have said overlapping state and federal legislation had made the approvals process confusing and difficult to access, and called for a single, streamlined system.
Federal approval required
Under the EPBC Act, projects that might impact "animals, plants, habitats and places" of national significance required federal assessment and approval.
But it also allowed landholders to determine for themselves whether they needed to be referred for an assessment, and enabled them to choose not to if they believed there would be no impact on "protected matters".
ACF national nature campaigner Jess Abrahams said its report showed none of the clearing in Queensland was approved or assessed under the EPBC Act.
"While mining companies and property developers sought and received approval to clear 25,000 hectares of habitat in the last decade, this research shows in a single year pastoralists destroyed three times that amount in Queensland alone without even seeking approval," he said.
He said without reform, Australia would not achieve net zero emissions or meet its international obligations.
"We need strong laws with binding national standards that apply to all, and those laws need to be enforced by an EPA," Mr Abrahams said.
"An independent watchdog that can enforce the laws and make sure that, not only do people in the pastoral industry understand their obligations under the national law, they comply with that obligation."
Land clearing is largely regulated by state and territory governments, and the Queensland government has been contacted for comment.
Farmers want clarity
Meanwhile, farmers have called for clarity.
Michael Guerin from lobby group AgForce said most graziers did the right thing, but with vegetation management largely regulated by the states, the overlapping system was confusing.
“At the moment what we have is a huge amount of legislation, gaps and overlaps, three levels of government to get through,” he said.
"It is just too hard, so people don't know what they can and can't do."
He has called for collaboration on reforms.
"I haven't met a landholder yet that does not want to understand what to do to protect the environment … There's too much at stake," Mr Guerin said.
The federal government said its response to the Samuel Review, to be delivered by the end of the year, would outline how it intended to modernise compliance and enforcement provisions and address concerns around the cumulative impacts of "regulated and unregulated land use".
"The government has also committed to introduce new legislation in 2023 and to engage on its development with a broad range of stakeholders and partners, including First Nations groups, business, environment groups, scientists and state and territory governments," a spokesperson from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water said.
Mr Abrahams said the Queensland government had committed to reducing land clearing in the state, but more could be done.
"Clearly there is an ongoing problem where habitat for nationally-listed threatened species is being cleared and, at the state level and at the national level, the laws need to be better harmonised and better integrated," he said.
