GC: n
CT: Though the extreme rates of land clearing that placed Australia in the top 10 land clearing nations in the world have reduced over the past 5 years, we are still clearing much more native vegetation than is being replanted or that is regenerating naturally. This ongoing net loss and decline continues to threaten Australia’s environment. Clearing increases erosion and sedimentation of waterways and reduces water quality. Clearing removes habitats leading to the direct loss of millions of native animals and plants every year and creates an extinction debt.
Rates of land clearing in Queensland and New South Wales are still unacceptably high and proposals continue for development in northern Australia involving clearing of hundreds of thousands of hectares. There is a risk that the severe consequences of clearing vast areas of southern Australia for agriculture will be repeated in the north.
Revegetating land to a complexity that resembles intact native vegetation is difficult and expensive. Recent reviews of natural resource management programs have highlighted the expense and difficulty in restoring an area to original condition and the incongruity of continuing to allow further clearing given the existing problems and environmental challenges being dealt with in cleared landscapes.
S: http://www.bushheritage.org.au/what_we_do/managing-the-land/natural_world_land_clearing (last access: 4 February 2015)
N: 1. land (n): Old English land, lond, “ground, soil,” also “definite portion of the earth’s surface, home region of a person or a people, territory marked by political boundaries,” from Proto-Germanic landom, from PIE lendh- “land, heath”.
Etymological evidence and Gothic use indicates the original sense was “a definite portion of the earth’s surface owned by an individual or home of a nation.” Meaning early extended to “solid surface of the earth,” which had been the sense of the root of Modern English earth. Original sense of land in English is now mostly found under country.
clearing (n): late 14c., “action of making clear,” verbal noun from clear (v.). Meaning “land cleared of wood” is from 1818, American English.
2. 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.
S: 1. OED – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=land+clearing&searchmode=none (last access: 4 February 2015). 2. http://www.gnb.ca/0173/30/0173300007-e.asp (last access: 4 February 2015).
SYN: clearing
S: TERMIUMPLUS
