Land Clearing Greater Sydney and Its Impacts

 Land clearing is the process of removing trees, stumps, brush, stones and other obstacles from an area as required to increase the size of the crop producing land base of an existing farm or to provide land for a new farm operation. The newly cleared land must be ready for cultivation, including liming and leveling to meet acceptable crop rotation and soil conservation goals.

What Are the Effects of Land Clearing?

Deforestation has devastating impacts on the environment on both a small scale and a global scale. In the immediate vicinity, land clearing destroys and fragments habitats, endangers animals, increases soil erosion, contributes to pollution, increases flooding risk and even exacerbates the effects of climate change.

Impacts on rivers and the coast

Land clearance greatly impacts on the health of rivers and coastal ecosystems. It increases erosion and the runoff of sediment, nutrients and other pollutants into coastal waters, causing damage to coral reefs and other marine ecosystems such as seagrass beds. Increased nutrients in rivers and streams can cause outbreaks of toxic algae.

Animal extinction

Land clearing greater Sydney this has been caused by many interacting threats, including land clearance and ecosystem degradation. As habitats become increasingly fragmented, populations become more vulnerable to the other threats, such as predation by feral species and destructive fires, and lose the ability to recolonise suitable habitat from which they're lost.

The loss of plant species

People tend to be most aware of and concerned about animal species. But our flora is equally unique and threatened. There are over 23,800 plant species of which 86% are endemic (found nowhere else).

Salinisation

In drier regions, when rain falls on bush much of it is captured by the roots of plants and expired back to the atmosphere. After the bush is cleared the water continues down through earth and adds to ground water. The water table can then rise bringing salt to the surface, causing salinisation, which renders land useless for farming and destroys habitat for species.

Climate change

Land clearing is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, contributing approximately 12 per cent total emissions in 1998. The removal of vegetation damages the microclimate by removing shade and reducing humidity. It also contributes to global climate change by diminishing the capacity of the vegetation to absorb carbon dioxide. Land clearing could also be responsible for reduced rainfall levels & possible desertification of land as well as soil erosion

How does land clearing affect the rest of us?

Land clearing leads to habitat loss and habitat fragmentation, exposing what's left  to fire and invasive pests such as weeds. Native regrowth is important for native animals and for increasing the size of remnant areas of vegetation, essential for preventing extinctions. This habitat loss and fragmentation is especially concerning for native animals such as koalas, which in Queensland have been recently added to the threatened species list.