New deforestation and land clearing hotspots have emerged in Tasmania since 2015, according to new analysis by WWF Australia.
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Eastern Australia has been identified as a so-called deforestation front in the WWF report - making Australia the only developed nation in the world to be included in the list of 24 fronts, which are defined by a significant concentration of deforestation hotspots.
The report found that in the 13 years from 2004 to 2017, an area of forest six times the size of Tasmania (more than 43 million hectares) was lost across the globe.
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Martin Taylor, a conservation scientist with WWF Australia, said it was a "surprise" to see hotspots appearing in Tasmania.
"It did occur to us when we saw Tasmania pop up that the government had reversed the Tasmanian Forest Agreement in 2014," he said.
"And we haven't done a detailed analysis to look at whether there's a direct one-to-one [relationship]."
The report says that the primary cause of deforestation and land clearing in Eastern Australia is pasture expansion for cattle ranching, while large-scale logging is noted as an important secondary cause.
Greens leader Cassy O'Connor said the new research was "both worrying and upsetting".
"Industrial native forest logging and burning releases millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year, wipes out critical habitat, depletes water in the landscape and increases bushfire risk," Ms O'Connor said.
"In a climate and biodiversity crisis, this is madness."
Resources Minister Guy Barnett said the state's forestry sector was globally recognised as being one of the "best managed and most environmentally and sustainably focused forest estates in the world".
"In Tasmania, all public production forests are regrown after harvesting, ensuring a sustainable forest industry into the future," he said. "Broad-scale clearance and conversion of native forest is prohibited in Tasmania, other than in limited circumstances."
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