The Queensland government wants tough new environmental laws, which it plans to introduce in late 2011, aimed at protecting central Queensland’s agricultural heartland.
Under the legislation, agricultural land in much of southern Queensland would be protected from mining and coal seam gas development.
“We are leading the nation in policy that safeguards our best cropping land – other states are now following suit," Environment and Resource Management Minister Kate Jones said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Through this policy, we are protecting our important food bowls across the state."
Under the new policy, two areas of strategic cropping land have been identified: Strategic Cropping Protection Areas and a Strategic Cropping Management Area.
The government has identified two Strategic Cropping Protection Areas; one in central Queensland and one in southern Queensland.
Development projects within the Protection Areas that are not well advanced in the approvals process would be subject to “the full effect of the legislation to be introduced later this year", according to the Queensland government.
Outside of the Protection Areas – which have been labelled Strategic Cropping Land Management Areas – projects would need to avoid permanently rendering cropping land unusable and mitigate any unavoidable impacts.
Development proponents hoping to build mining or coal seam gas projects in these areas would need to undertake an on-ground assessment, against eight criteria selected by the government, to determine whether a site was strategic cropping land.
Allowances would be made for proposed mining projects already well advanced that have met certain milestones in the assessment process.
The Australian Financial Review