Land clearing is exploding in the NT

Multinational corporations are trying to push their way into the NT with plans to bulldoze more than 50,000 hectares in the next few years and up to 200,000 hectares in the long run. 

The Northern Territory Farmers Association and OLAM Australia, a multinational corporation which runs cotton gins across NSW and Queensland, are spearheading the proposal.

Massive stations on spectacular savanna woodland have been bought up by big agriculture businesses in the past year including Auvergne Station, while several others have plans to trial cotton. 

Land clearing is accelerating in the NT at an alarming rate. In the past four years, land approved for clearing increased by around 300%.  

In 2022 alone, 18,057 ha was approved for clearing. This is equivalent to around 8,926 MCG fields.  

Large-scale clearing will cause harm to biodiversity, degrade water quality, and increase carbon emissions.  

A cotton industry would also increase pressure on water across the Territory. Depending on how it is grown, cotton can be a thirsty crop; it can take about 10,000 litres of water on average to grow one kilogram of cotton. 

Several factors determine how much water a crop needs – whether it is rain-fed, how it is irrigated, soil and pesticide use. 

The NT Farmers Association has plans to extract 520 gigalitres of water from the Territory’s Daly River, and although they say the majority of cotton crops will be rain-fed that still requires water to be banked for dry periods. Between 500 and 1,500 hectares will be irrigated operations.  

Genetically modified cotton is used for the vast majority of crops in Australia. 

Like other crops, cotton farming can lead to soil erosion, contamination, and degrade the quality of soil.  

Eroded soil may contain fertilisers or pesticides which are harmful to the environment and will run off into waterways and groundwater. 

Soil in the NT typically has low nutrient levels and poor structure, making it poor for cropping. As these soils have limited capacity to hold water it may also require irrigation. A report found dry-land cotton crops could lead to the risk of erosion and nitrates being lost in runoff. 

Floodplain harvesting has caused serious problems in the Murray Darling Basin where cotton farmers have been able to take vital flood waters by diverting it with levees and channels, rather than letting water flow back into the river, wetlands and downstream.   

Floodplains across the NT are highly biodiverse ecosystems, and seasonal floods are a primary driver of ecological processes supporting vital wildlife.   

Corporations pushing for the cotton industry in the NT seek to divert flood water away from these critical natural processes, which could be damaging to the river flows, wetlands and entire ecosystem. 

Cotton crops can require pesticides and fertilizers which are harmful to the environment and run off into the soil and water.  

The Oolloo Dolostone aquifer in the Daley River region of the NT is vulnerable to contamination because there are hundreds of sinkholes and permeable soil.  

In this region, the groundwater system and Daly River are tightly connected and poor-quality water leaching into groundwater and the river could impact communities’ drinking water. 

An NT government study found low levels of agricultural chemicals in the Oolloo Dolostone and Katherine Tindall aquifers, which has prompted concerns of what a growing cotton sector would mean for the health of the community and environment. 

The iconic Murray Darling Basin is the epicentre of cotton crops in Australia, and a warning bell sounding the alarm to other jurisdictions. 

Unforgettable scenes of disastrous algae blooms, millions of fish killed, and sections of river reduced to puddles were a stark insight into an ecosystem in peril.  

A Royal Commission in 2019 was launched off the back of allegations of water theft by NSW cotton farmers, which found commonwealth officials had committed gross maladministration, negligence and unlawful actions in the Murray Darling Basin Plan and recommended a complete overhaul.