February 12, 2026
The Nature Conservation Council of NSW (NCC) today warned that NSW's land clearing laws are actively driving the destruction of some of the state's most important wildlife habitat, despite explicit election promises from the NSW Labor Government to stop it.
New analysis by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists has shown that between 2010 and 2023, 677,500 hectares was cleared, including 13,880 hectares of high-biodiversity habitat and 33,682 hectares in sensitive riparian areas - habitat to threatened species that should be afforded the highest legal protection.
"More than any other issue, Labor has failed to deliver on its election promise to stop land clearing" Jacqui Mumford, NCC CEO said today.
"The new evidence is confronting - some species, like the critically endangered Narrabarba wattle has been cleared across 16% of its NSW distribution.
"There is a clear disconnect between our current nature laws and on-ground biodiversity outcomes.
"High-value habitat that should be untouchable is still being bulldozed.
"Labor was elected promising to fix land clearing, yet we are still operating under Liberal-National rules that stripped back nature protections and gave landholders power to clear land with no oversight.
"Clearing native vegetation is widely recognised as one of the greatest drivers of biodiversity decline - it wipes out homes for wildlife and disrupts natural environmental processes.
"This report confirms what communities have been saying for years: the laws are failing, and the government has not delivered on their promise to fix rules that don't work."
This latest report adds to mounting evidence of the urgency of reform.
"How many times do community and civil society groups need to demonstrate that change is urgent? The Government's own reporting shows biodiversity across NSW is in ongoing decline, exposing fundamental flaws in the current land management framework," Ms Mumford said.
The NSW Government has committed to 'protect, restore and improve biodiversity in NSW' and to 'leave nature better off than we found it' through its Plan for Nature (2024). Those commitments remain unmet.
We need to see:
- An ambitious Nature Strategy for NSW, with clear targets and well-resourced programs which protect important habitat on the ground, to turn this trajectory around and make gains in restored land.
- An overhaul of the land management rules currently governing how habitat can be cleared, including a rethink of the out of date 'invasive native species' provisions, which are still allowing hectares to be chain cleared with no oversight.
