CEO Note: A victory for the Great Barrier Reef

16/Oct/2026

Sydney Jones

Press Secretary

Sydney@mightyearth.org

Carole Mitchell

Global Communications Director

carole@mightyearth.org

By Glenn Hurowitz, Founder & CEO

I’m thrilled to share good news for Nature from Australia, where the country’s new National Environment Protection Agency just issued its first-ever Environment Protection Order. It stops further land clearing across 1,600 hectares of forest that drain onto the Great Barrier Reef while the agency’s investigation continues. Mighty Earth has been campaigning alongside our best mates at the Australian Conservation Foundation around the world to support action.

While this first order applies to one property, it sends a message across the bush: deforestation risks serious legal consequences. Violations found to have taken place after July 1 can come with fines of as much as $1.82 million for individuals and $18.2 million for corporations and criminal penalties up to seven years of imprisonment.

The Australian government acted following a grassroots campaign to address Australia’s deforestation crisis: 700,000 acres of forest are destroyed each year, demolishing homes for koalas, greater gliders, and other wildlife – and sending runoff pouring into sensitive marine ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef where it can choke off corals already struggling because of the hotter climate.

Satellite image of mud plumes flowing into the Great Barrier Reef downstream from clearing, extracted by TropWATER/James Cook University. The new order will halt unauthorized clearing identified by ACF at Wombinoo Station. It will cut the amount of sediment washing into the reef by 1,000 tonnes (about 80 dump trucks’ worth).

The meat industry is responsible for more than 90 percent of the destruction, which gives Australia the highest rate of deforestation of any developed country.

In the past, this deforestation has been largely allowed because the beef industry was exploiting the “antipodean loophole.” Many corporate conservation policies around the world simply don’t cover Australian forests (they’re focused on better-known biomes like the Amazon, Southeast Asia’s Paradise Forests, or the Congo). As a result, Australian beef producers have been able to plough under wombat homes and sell steaks and hamburgers overseas while pretending they’re sustainable. Indeed, across Asia, Australian beef is marketed as a clean, sustainable product despite a wildly outsized footprint.

Land clearing for beef production in Australia (via ACF)

Our mates at the Australian Conservation Foundation and Mighty Earth have spent months campaigning around the world to protect the reef. Most recently, we held a series of events around New York Climate Week highlighting how 70 percent of McDonald’s burgers sold around the world contain Australian beef. We also brought the message of the peril to the reef from McDonald’s and suppliers like Cargill and JBS to Las Vegas, South Korea, and elsewhere.

Mighty Earth / ACF campaign posters went up around New York City during Climate Week

To be clear, this is just a beginning: deforestation continues across Australia more widely, and koalas and other threatened wildlife still need protection beyond the reef catchment. We’re going to continue our campaign to protect Australia’s forests and transform the meat industry. But this is a crucial first step, and a signal that Australia’s new agency has real teeth.

Nature faces enormous challenges in many parts of the world right now. But this progress shows again that determined and creative campaigns for Nature can deliver game-changing victories over and over again.

Thanks to Australian Conservation Foundation, our many allies and volunteers in Australia and around the world, and the Minderoo Foundation for making this campaign possible.