Land clearing: two million hectares of Queensland forest destroyed in five years, new analysis shows

The majority of clearing occurred in regrowth forest more than 15 years old, which experts say would have been rich potential habitat for native animals. Photograph: Auscape/UIG/Getty Images

More than 2m hectares (4.94m acres) of bushland in Queensland that included large swathes of possible koala habitat has been cleared over a five-year period, new analysis shows.

The research, commissioned by Greenpeace and conducted by the University of Queensland academic Martin Taylor, found almost all land clearing that occurred in the state between 2016 and 2021 was in areas where threatened species habitat was “likely to occur”.