The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says forest clearing in Queensland is wiping out tens of millions of animals and driving threatened wildlife to the brink of extinction.
In a statement on National Threatened Species Day on Sunday, WWF said the annual Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS) reveals 375,000 hectares of bush were cleared in 2005-06, killing two million mammals, about 9,000 koalas and millions of birds and reptiles.
The group is calling for a clearing moratorium to protect the state's unique wildlife from habitat loss and further destruction and to help combat climate change.
"This amount of clearing is unacceptable to the Australian public," said WWF Queensland program leader Nick Heath. "It's a huge blow for our wildlife, our climate, our rivers and reefs.
"The animals that are wiped out suffer horribly as they are burnt or starved to death.
"In order to function properly, our ecosystems depend greatly on all the plants and animals that are lost.
"Forest clearing also opens up the Murray-Darling to further degradation and leads to millions of tonnes of eroded soil flowing through rivers, polluting our waterways and marine environments."
Land clearing accounted for 41.4 million tonnes - or 24 per cent - of the state's greenhouse gas emissions in 2005-06, the second highest contributor after the energy sector.
"Queensland will fail to reduce emissions if it continues to allow this level of land clearing," Mr Heath said.
"Halting the practice is a cheap and easy way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
WWF says the Queensland government should act immediately to stop all clearing of endangered, vulnerable or threatened regional ecosystems.
Clearing should also be prevented on land subject to erosion, salinity or other forms of degradation, as well as riverbanks, wetlands and wildlife corridors.
Permanent protection of vegetation should be encouraged through the use of carbon-priced incentives, the group says.
"The minister has the power to regulate land clearing under the Vegetation Management Act," Mr Heath said.
"It just takes the political will to intervene."
