'Gobsmacked': threatened bird habitat cleared under Australia’s new nature laws

Environmentalists have accused the Albanese Government of making a “mockery” of Australia’s new nature laws, saying they’re “gobsmacked” by its decision to greenlight the destruction of threatened bird habitat in the Northern Territory.

The federal environment department has approved the Top End Pastoral Company to clear nearly 3,000 hectares of tropical savanna on Claravale farm and station in the Daly River region, without requiring an environmental assessment.

Despite the area being home to the endangered Red Goshawk and Gouldian Finch, the land – an area almost 10 times the size of Sydney’s CBD – will be bulldozed to make way for cotton crops.

“We’re absolutely gobsmacked by this decision, which makes a mockery of Labor’s promise to fix our broken nature laws,” said Environment Centre NT Executive Director Dr Kirsty Howey.

She says it’s one of the first deforestation plans to be lodged and assessed by the Federal Government since its new national environment laws were passed in the Senate in November 2025.

“If plans of this scale – to bulldoze thousands of hectares of Australia’s great savanna and the homes for over a dozen threatened species don’t trigger federal assessment, what does?”

BirdLife Australia says habitat destruction is pushing both bird species toward extinction.

“The Red Goshawk has become Australia’s rarest bird of prey because its habitat has routinely been bulldozed,” said BirdLife Australia CEO Kate Millar.

“To greenlight more destruction, without even assessing how threatened species like the Red Goshawk and Gouldian Finch will be affected is yet another example of what the extinction process looks like in Australia today.”

The Environment Centre NT noted “the decision effectively greenlights the destruction of likely habitat for 18 threatened species, including Gouldian finches, freshwater sawfish, pig-nosed turtles, red goshawks and ghost bats.

“If these magnificent savannas are fragmented even more, already rare and patchily distributed wildlife will be pushed ever closer to extinction. Literally, death by repeated cuts,” said Professor Euan Ritchie, a wildlife ecology and conservation expert at Deakin University.

The decision was published on the same day Environment Minister Murray Watt announced that US mining company Alcoa would be permitted to continue clearing land in WA’s northern jarrah forest – despite being found to have illegally stripped the land for years.

“If this is how Australia’s new nature laws will continue to operate, we’re on a terrifying trajectory toward extinctions of the species our laws are supposed to protect,” said Ms Millar.

Claravale Farm has been in the spotlight before.

The NT government launched legal proceedings against the owners in November 2023 over the unpermitted clearing of 286 hectares of land.

According to the ABC it is believed to be the first time a government has taken such legal action in the NT’s history.

The parties reached a settlement in March 2025.

“Despite this company having previously been in the spotlight for allegations of unlawful clearing, they escaped prosecution and now have a free pass to finish the job without any federal oversight,” said Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

“We cannot keep letting big mining and agriculture companies break the law and get away with it. It makes a mockery of our laws and the nature they are intended to protect.”

The Environment Centre NT also noted the deforestation risks “one of only six maternity roosts for ghost bats in the entire Northern Territory, where the tiny bats raise their pups in limestone caves”.

It’s estimated fewer than 10,000 ghost bats remain in Australia.