Protesters have rallied outside Queensland parliament calling on the state government to protect the outback's Channel Country rivers from oil and gas exploration.
The joint rally demanded an end of Channel Country fracking and a commitment to protect the remote region by year's end.
About 100 protesters including Queensland Greens MPs, pastoralists, agriculturalists and First Nations people gathered, brandishing banners on Wednesday.
More than 20,000 submissions supporting full protection of the Channel Country were handed to the government as part of an open consultation period that ended in late August.
The Channel Country area spans Queensland's far west as well as parts of the Northern Territory, South Australia and NSW.
A regulatory impact statement prepared by the Environment and Science Department has been released, saying the area's Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre Basin has global ecological importance and First Nations cultural significance.
Environmentalist group Lock the Gate's Ellie Smith said the Channel Country rivers brought life to the desert region and played a vital part supporting farmers and wildlife.
She said the majority of submissions in public consultation was for no more oil and gas exploration in the area.
"What we want for Christmas is for the Palaszczuk government to announce they will put in the highest protections for rivers," Ms Smith told AAP.
Greens MP Michael Berkman addressed the crowd and questioned how the government could let its commitments sit idle for so long.
"For it to take as long as it did to get the regulatory impact statement out is in itself extraordinary," he said.
The Wilderness Society's Hannah Schuch said communities did not want to see natural and ecologically significant systems unnecessarily tarnished by exploration and fracking.
"We want to see these protections enacted now, we can't wait any longer," she told AAP.
" We cannot risk this issue going for another electoral term."
