Be a post whore!

[ZenGum]

There are great variations across Australia.

In the southern states, clearing land which wasn't already cleared usually requires a (hard to get) permit and/or gets you in trouble. Unless you're felling old growth forests for woodchips for pulp for paper, and replanting with native but non-local monocultures, then it's OK. Most cities have rules protecting significant trees, and a tree has to be obviously dangerous to human life to get chopped.

The further north you go, the easier trees grow, and the less protection they have.

In northern New South Wales, where the hippies gather (remember that IotD about the woman who was besieged by a pig because she was too much of a hippie to deal with it? That area) there is STRONG protection. I recall a newspaper report of a developer who cut down 20 trees without permission. He was fined $50,000, and ordered to replant 20 trees of the same species in the same locations and put up a $1,000 bond per tree to guarantee the care and survival or replacement of those trees for 20 years.

Once you cross the border and move north in Queensland, property development is pretty much done by getting Saruman to send in the half-orcs for a recreational rampage.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Once you cross the border and move north in Queensland, property development is pretty much done by getting Saruman to send in the half-orcs for a recreational rampage.

That'll teach me to drink coffee whilst reading the Cellar.