DARWIN - Environmentalists in Australia are claiming a partial victory after a company backed down from its plans to clear nearly 1,000 hectares of tropical savanna to grow cotton in the face of a legal challenge.
However, they fear a new 'Agribusiness Strategy’ from the Northern Territory (NT) state government could see 100 times that amount of "the world's largest remaining intact tropical woodland" cleared for crops.
The Environment Centre NT (ECNT) launched a landmark challenge in the Supreme Court against the NT government earlier this year over the granting of a permit to clear land for cotton growing at Auvergne Station, south of the Victoria River.
